Chicken Biryani

Cooking Light's recipe for Chicken Biryani has been on my to-do list for a long time and I am really glad I decided to make this on Thursday.   This dish was one of my favorite meals so far this fall.  

Photo: Randy Mayor; Styling: Cindy Barr

A few years back, I took a few trips to India as part of my job and when the team went out for dinner, some type of Biryani was always among the many dishes we would share at dinner.   Fresh ginger, cumin, garam masala, and fresh cilantro give this dish a wonderful flavor.   My wife likes Indian food and she always seems to appreciate the Indian dishes I make. 

Halibut with Mint Chutney

Halibut with Mint Chutney is one of our favorite dishes.   I wrote about this same dish back in March.    I haven't made this dish as frequently as I did last year, because I have found so many new recipes I love.     This is a Cooking Light recipe you can find at myrecipes.com.

This dish has Indian flavors so I served the halibut with Basmati rice and the same Indian Spiced Green Beans I often serve with Tandoori Chicken.  

It was a healthy and delicious dinner and less than 500 calories for 4oz of halibut, half cup of the green beans, and 2oz of cooked rice.

Curied Shrimp and Chick Peas in Tomato Sauce over Rice

Our schedules on Thursday and Friday this week were thrown off due to a car in the shop.   Its amazing how much turmoil is created by having to fight my way through peak traffic to get to the mechanic's shop across town before the shop closes at 6pm.   

I didn't have time to go the grocery store on Thursday or Friday, so I had to make due with ingredients on hand.   I had some frozen, wild-caught, gulf shrimp in the freezer and combined this with canned chick peas, canned diced tomatoes, rice, and some spices to make a dish which was similar to Chana Masala (without fresh herbs).

I cooked the onions, garlic, and spices in oil and then added shrimp follwed by chick peas and the diced tomatoes and salt.   I did not drain the tomatoes so the liquid in the 28 oz can of diced tomatoes provided most of the liquid for the sauce.   I did end up adding a bit of broth to give the dish more moisture.

I served this over steamed rice and it was pretty good-- good enough that we actually ate the left overs on Saturday night.   This is something I will make again but with some cilantro next time.

Grilled Tandoori Chicken

My wife and I both love Indian flavors and Tandoori chicken is a favorite whenever we go to an Indian restaurant.   Back in March, I made Tandoori chicken for the first time using a recipe from Cooking Light which I found on myrecipes.com.   I also use only boneless, skinless chicken breasts when I make this dish.   The chicken breasts are a healthier choice than the whole chicken legs.

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

This is the 4th time I have made Tandoori chicken with this recipe, this year.   A couple of times when we had this, I picked  up some Naan (Indian flat bread) from a local Indian restaurant, but I didn't do that for this meal, but only because I didn't think of it.   Since both my wife and I are on a diet, we really don't need the extra calories from the bread anyway.

In the past I have made Indian-spiced green beans using a Cooking Light recipe for Indian-spiced Okra on myrecipes.com.   I used the same spices and recipe again, but with zucchini this time.   I loved the green beans, but the Zucchini was amazing.

I also served rice and raita with this meal.   This dinner is less than 400 calories per plate with 4oz of cooked chicken per serving.   It makes for delicious left overs, too!

Red Curried Tofu

I made Red Curried Tofu for dinner tonight.  This is a Cooking Light recipe I found on myrecipes.com.

Its nice to have a meatless meal once in awhile, especially if you are counting calories and tracking the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet, but I generally don't get that excited about a tofu dish, so its been awhile since made this.   The last time I made this dish was back in April and that was the first time I had used this recipe.

I remembered that I liked the dish back in April, but I actually loved the dish and I loved it tonight as well.   It was much tastier than I remembered.

Cooking light says that each serving which includes about 3/4 cup of cooked rice is almost 300 calories.    I ended up eating about 1.5 servings for a 450 calorie dinner, which is a little lighter than the amount of calories I typically consume at dinner.

Its about 11pm now and if I don't eat anything else, I will end the day with a calorie deficit of about 1,000 calories.

	Contents	Calories	Comments
Breakfast	Raisin Bran Toast w/margarine and jam Coffie and milk Banana	426	High fiber breakfast!
Lunch	Turkey sandwich with low fat cheddar cheese, mayo, mustard and tomatoes. Tortilla chips and salsa	450	2oz of roasted turkey breast and 45 calories per slice Sara Lee Bread
Dinner	Red Curried Tofu	474
Snacks	Apple, Cheese puffs, Psylllium Husk, and Orange Juice	362	I take 3 tablespoons of psyllium husk in a glass of orange juice every night.
Exercise	Raking leaves and yard work for 90 minutes	-400
Total Consumption		1312
Daily Burn		-2300
Total		-1012	If I did this every day, I would lose over 2lbs per week!

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.

Red Curried Tofu

As I start on the 3rd week of my serious effort at reducing the amount of sodium, cholesterol, saturated fat, and calories in my diet, I have a new found appreciation for fruits, vegetables, and vegetarian cooking.    My wife and I were both vegetarians when we met and we maintained a vegetarian diet for a few years after we got married.   I started eating meat again when I felt like I wasn't getting enough nutrition from my vegetarian diet.

So, its been nice to revisit vegetarian cuisine again after many years and after my skills in the kitchen have improved.   I am enjoying the food more than I did those many years ago and I really appreciate being able to eat a delicious and satisfying dinner without blowing my calorie or sodium budget.

On Sunday night for dinner I made Red Curried Tofu.    I tend to think of Thai food when I think of Red Curried Tofu, but this dish has more of an Indian flavor.   I added the tofu into the pan at the same time I started the peppers and onions so that the tofu would be well cooked and even a little browned.   I served the Red Curried Tofu over rice.  This dish was delicious and very filling and really healthy.

photo:  Randy Mayor; Lydia DeGaris-Pursell

 To go along with this dish I made Indian Spiced green beans based on a Cooking Light recipe for Indian Spiced Okra.   I did steam the green beans before I stir fried them just because I really like my green beans very soft.   I also used half the amount of salt recommended in the recipe for the okra.

Both the tofu dish and the green beans made great left overs and we really enjoyed both dishes.

The tofu dish and green beans combined had over 700mg of sodium, but I planned for this and made sure I did not take in too much sodium for breakfast and lunch.    Total calories for this meal is around 400 calories and I left the table feeling full.

Sweet Potato and Cashew Korma over Coconut Rice

I tried a new dish tonight, Sweet Potato and Cashew Korma over Coconut Rice.   This is a vegetarian dish and although you wouldn't know it from the title, tofu is a main ingredient.   The cashews have a very small role.   It should really be called Sweet Potato and Tofu Korma over Coconut Rice.

photo by Randy Mayor

This is an Indian inspired dish and I knew my wife would probably like this a lot, which she did.   It is not really at the top of my list as far as Indian dishes go.   I really liked the Tandoori chicken I made a few weeks ago much better.

This is supposed to be left overs for tomorrow night as well, but I might find something else to eat tomorrow night.   I don't know, maybe I will give it another try.   Some dishes actually taste better as left overs and this dish is super healthy.

I mostly followed the recipe except that I did stir fry the Tofu in some peanut oil before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.   The recipe said to cook the other ingredients and then put the tofu in raw before serving.   That did not seem like it would turn out well to me.   Raw tofu is just not very good in my opinion.    Anyway, I liked the tofu in this dish having cooked it separately.

This is the first time I have made coconut rice.   This is just Indian basmati rice made in the usual way but with the addition of coconut milk along with water.   Normally, the amount of water I use is 2x the amount of rice.   To make the coconut rice its 2 3/4 cups of water and 1 cup of coconut milk with 1 1/2 cups of rice.   I was worried that would be way to much liquid and that the rice would be soggy, but it was perfect actually.

This was a pretty good meal for my diet and today was a good day as far as my diet goes.

Here are my stats for today (including breakfast, lunch, and dinner)

1.  6g of dietary fiber at breakfast... my goal is 5g minimum
2.  1850 calories for the day... my goal is 2100 maximum
3.  38g of dietary fiber for the whole day... goal is minimum 38g
4.  7% of calories from saturated fat... goal is 7% max
5.  0g trans fat... goal is 0g
6.  150mg of cholesterol, goal is 300mg maximum
7.  1852mg of sodium... goal is 1500mg max, but 1800mg is pretty good!

Tandoori Grilled Chicken

I have been wanting to make Tandoori Grilled Chicken for a few weeks, and around the middle of the week it was looking like Sunday was going to be the day.   Nice weather for grilling and I would have time on Saturday night or Sunday morning to start marinating the chicken.    Tandoori chicken is one of my all time favorite Indian dishes.   I tried making it in the oven a few months ago and it was OK, but not nearly as good as Tandoori chicken from a good Indian restaurant.

As things turned out, I didn't end up starting the marinade until around 1pm and the chicken was in the marinade at about 2:30pm.   I put the chicken on the grill at 6:30pm, so the chicken was able to marinade for about 4 hours.   Next time, I make this, I am going to marinade the chicken for longer.

The Tandoori Grilled Chicken recipe I used is another Cooking Light recipe I found on myrecipes.com.   The recipe called for slow cooking on the grill.   For a charcoal grill, which is what I use, the recipe said to push all the coals to the outer edges of the grill and to cook the chicken in the center of the grill.   My grill isn't very large, so I followed the recommendations and with 4 pieces of chicken on the grill (2 breasts and 2 whole legs), there were no coals directly under the chicken.   But, I think had too much heat on the chicken though, because the recipe said to cook the chicken this way for 90 minutes, but my chicken cooked in 30 minutes.  

The skin on the whole chicken legs was charred pretty good, but the skin ended up coming off and the chicken underneath the skin was perfect and had a wonderful flavor from the marinade.   The chicken breasts were boneless, skinless, but they were more towards the center of the grill so they did not get charred as much.   However, since the chicken breasts no skin, it was more difficult to remove the parts which were blackened.    I prefer whole chicken legs in general and my wife likes boneless skinless chicken breasts.    My wife said she really liked the chicken breasts.

I served the chicken with raita, plain rice, Indian spiced green beans, and some Indian bread (Naan) we picked up from a local restaurant just before dinner.

For the Indian-Spiced Green Beans, I used a Cooking Light recipe for Indian-Spiced Okra substituting green beans for the Okra.   The beans turned out great.

Overall, this was a really great dinner and a definite repeat.     Next time, I will marinade the chicken longer and maybe steam the green beans a bit before cooking them to make them more tender.  

Halibut with Spicy Mint Cilantro Chutney

Halibut with Spicy Mint Cilantro Chutney is a family favorite and another Cooking Light recipe I got from myrecipes.com.    This is probably the 5th or 6th time I have made this and each time resulted in a delicious dinner.    I make the chutney first.   Pulling the leaves off the cilantro and the mint and then chopping the mint and cilantro takes about half of the prep time for me... I'm a slow cook.    So, this meal usually takes me a little over an hour to prepare.

I used wild caught, previously frozen Alaskan halibut for tonight's dinner.   Fresh halibut turns out even better, but its not in season at the moment.   The fish monger at Whole Foods said that he should start getting fresh Alaskan halibut and King Salmon at the end of March.   I am really looking forward to that.

For Christmas, my wife gave me a screen to cover the pan when I am frying fish.   The screen has activated charcoal inside to absorb the fish smell.   This really keeps the house from smelling like cooked fish and I highly recommend.

I served the halibut with plain rice and a side of zucchini sauteed in olive oil.    I love mixing the chutney with the rice.

My 9 year old daughter loves plain white Thai Jasmine rice and she is starting to eat zucchini!  The halibut is much too spicy for her, so whenever I make fish, I usually make poached wild caught salmon for her.   She loves to dip each bite of salmon in lemon juice and olive oil and she can put away a half pound of salmon when she is really hungry.  Its one of her favorite foods.