Wednesday Cookout: Same foods, two very different plates

Greetings from the heat wave!



Like most of the country, we are having a terrible heat wave here in Illinois, and the 4th of July was one of the worst days. 103!! We just don't get highs that high here, and delicate snowbirds like us are not equipped for it. So we spent most of the day indoors, and didn't regret it. I took the photo above of my patio; knowing the sun was only making everything even hotter did not make sitting out there a very appealing option.

However, when it was time to grill, Hubby and I both braved the elements, at least for a short while.

Me in my patriotic outfit. So glad I found that Gap tee from a few years ago in the bottom of my drawer!



I am madly in love with my new sandals, you guys. The stripes make me grin every time I look down. I did get another pedicure with a more opaque pink nude. I know I am in the minority, but I like it for now. But next week I am going back to a hot-pink watermelon shade. :)



Hubby accidentally matched the colors on his beer bottle label (Bell's Oberon). Well, matchy-matchy is pretty trendy right now! I guess he's a hipster. 



Onto the important stuff: the food.



On top is pineapple, our new favorite grilled item. Hubby gobbles it up, so you know I have to keep buying it. When I get a winner, I milk it for all I can. We tried grilling corn this time; it came out fine, but I prefer my method of boiling for 3 minutes instead. Last but not least is the slices of white onion. We don't even need to season any of this, we just cook it as is and add the seasonings later.



The sausages were already done. We get these from a Wisconsin mushroom vendor at the farmer's market, and they are SPECTACULAR. They're portobello mushroom swiss cheese brats. They're earthy and juicy with sweet melted chunks of swiss cheese mixed in, and OMG. They're the only sausages I buy regularly that aren't chicken or turkey based, and I don't care. Sometimes it is worth getting the real thing.

Once everything was grilled, we hustled back inside to the blessed air conditioning. But it was worth braving the heat when we had this to feast on:



You'd think that with all those veggies we would both end up with healthy plates, right? Wrong.

This is what I served myself:



Grilled corn, chopped up pineapple, blue cheese coleslaw, brat on whole wheat bun with grilled onions, pineapple and BBQ sauce. (I went for Hawaiian-flavored, one of my favorite combos at fancy burger joints.)

This was Hubby's:



Two brats with grilled onions, stone-ground mustard and spicy gardiniere on whole wheat bun, one lone pineapple ring.

Let's review. Excluding condiments:
-the ratio of fruit/veggie to meat to bread on my plate is 3:1:1.
-the ratio on Hubby's is 1:2:2.

So if your husbands ever complain that they don't want to eat "rabbit food" if you are trying to eat better, you can show them that they don't have to, even if you have the same foods to choose from. LOL!

Happy grilling!

Sunday Cooking: A random assortment of photos

The corn is coming into season. Repeat: the corn is coming into season. Let the joy spread across the land!

I did not buy from this vendor at my farmer's market; there is something about the abundance of varieties they have of everything that makes them seem sketchy. I never see a sign proclaiming which farm they are from, they sell too many vegetables that are out of season in the Midwest, and their signs are always perfect and printed. I much prefer to buy from the people across the aisle with the price of their cherries hand-written on a cardboard flap who only have the 3 main seasonal items available. Thank goodness, one of those items was their first crop of corn. I didn't want to have to buy from the generic/supermarket vendor, and I really, really wanted some corn.



The farmer's market also had some lovely hanging plants, which I did not buy but I should have; we already killed the plant Hubby bought on Memorial Day. Didn't even make it 6 weeks!





It was so dead the leaves crunched into powder when I touched it. Sorry, little plant! I think I might try that big white one next.

While we were there, we stopped at the local cigar store for Hubby. He loves going there because the inside is lush and full of leather chairs and big TVs, and on Sunday they don't charge sales tax on cigars or tobacco. As taxes are now 38% for tobacco, that's quite a sale. (I know, it's not good for him. I'm working on it.) But the cigar store has an actual cigar store Indian. You don't see those around much!





I was dressed for the casual, hot weather. Even wore my new coral New Balance walking shoes!


Target bird top from 2011, Lands End white knit shorts 2011, brown crossbody bag 2011, my beloved Ralph Lauren aviator sunglasses. Those have paid for themselves over the last 3 years; the first expensive sunglasses I ever bought, and the only ones I wear.

When we got home, it was time for some quick cooking. Like Helen said she was doing a couple of weeks ago, now that it is grilling season I am really trying to limit the Sunday Cooking so I am just prepping veggies, salads and marinades, and the rest we are grilling or eating cold. But I am also finding that lunch is a struggle without prepping something else, so this week I made a "breakfast casserole", also known as a frittata, egg dish, or crustless quiche. This particular version was inspired by this recipe from Kalyn's Kitchen, but you guys know I love my quiche and I love mixing up different flavors.



Even here I didn't stick completely with the recipe. I cooked off the bacon in the microwave, then put the mostly-cooked pieces in the skillet so they would crisp up and render a little bit of fat. Then I removed the bacon and tossed a large onion sliced into rings into the skillet to cook down until it was soft and browning. THEN I removed the onion, added the chopped kale and wilted that. Chopped the bacon, mixed all of those ingredients together and placed in the bottom of the Corningware dish. (Best kitchen purchase I ever made. So perfect for casseroles in the oven, for serving at the table, and because I also bought the glass and the rubber lids they store and stack in the fridge too. Hunh, except for the ramekins, I think I have this whole set.)

ANYWAY, then I mixed in the eggs and cheese (I did add all 10 eggs which is 4 more than I usually put in my quiche), and seasoned it with some Worchestershire and Northwoods seasoning from Penzeys.



When it came out of the oven, I was so enamored by the high puff. It looked like a loaf of bread! It did flatten a little but it stayed pretty puffy. I definitely had to cook it longer than 20-25 minutes recommended in the recipe. In my experience and my oven, breakfast casseroles always take 40 minutes. Otherwise they don't finish in the middle.




I also made another batch of blue-cheese coleslaw. With fatfree sour cream, a bag of shredded coleslaw, and a container of blue cheese, it is super-easy and pretty healthy to make. Way better than anything you would buy at the deli counter! I season it with a couple of shakes of apple cider vinegar, kosher salt and pepper, celery seed and some Wall of Flavor, but the blue cheese really does all the work to give it such a deep, cool taste. Make it the day before you serve so the cabbage has time to soften and soak up the dressing.



And that was all I needed to feed myself lunch for a few days!



Bonus: a couple of outfit photos from Monday and Tuesday!

Phillip took Monday's photo in my office.



The new Gap white pants (which are completely gone from the website, alas. They stretch out a lot, I should have gotten a size smaller), my turquoise Clarks sandals from last year, a new hot-pink cami from Lane Bryant and a cute pink-and-turquoise print Target top. Which you may never see again since I ripped a hole in the front, DAMMIT.

On Tuesday, Hubby was home so he took the photo while I was rushing out the door.



Purple Old Navy blouse worn open, new white Target sleeveless tee, silver circle pendant necklace from Loft Outlet, black Gap pants and olive Clark sandals.

Lesson learned from both of these photos: never ask a man to take your outfit photos. Both lowered the camera to unflattering angles, Hubby chopped off the top of my head, and neither told me to unwrinkle myself so I and my clothes looked their best. Men!!

Next up: grilling on the 4th of July!

Sunday Cooking: Easy come, easy go

For posterity's sake, I am noting that I skipped Sunday Cooking last week. Not just the post, the actual cooking. I had plans all weekend and only a small window of opportunity to cook, and when I asked Hubby what he would like me to whip up quickly, he asked for another round of the bacon-wrapped chicken thighs from the week before. I wasn't in the mood for more of that, but I made them anyway.

I cannot express how much of a mistake this was. For both of us.

I won't go into details, this last week definitely taught me that it takes almost nothing for the foodstyle habits to come undone. They are mostly definitely not second-nature like I presumed they were, and junk food still holds a strong allure that I have to actively overcome.

So back it was to Sunday Cooking this week!

First up was a Miracle Mac and Cheese recipe I found on Budget Bytes this week. I used whole wheat elbows, skim milk and low-fat sharp cheddar cheese. So, so easy, and it tasted great. It reheats okay too.




Next I made a Green Pasta Sauce that Sheila from Ephemera sent me. I hope it's okay to re-print the recipe here, Sheila; it's so good I definitely want to share it.

++++++

Sheila's Green Pasta Sauce
(For the WW people: 5 PP per serving, makes 4 servings)

3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp of olive oil (3 PP values)
1 bunch of chard, kale or beet greens
1 bunch of spinach or watercress
1 250 ml tub of skim ricotta cheese (16 PP values)
Nutmeg
Salt, pepper

Sauté the chopped up garlic in the olive oil. Wash, then remove the stems and roughage from the chard, etc. Chop up (makes a lot, about 12 cups!) and then gradually stir into the garlic/olive oil until it’s all reduced (down to a much smaller amount). Add a bit of water if it seems dry. Add nutmeg (a few good shakes), salt and pepper to taste.

Put into a blender with the ricotta and puree until smooth, or puree with a hand blender. Serve immediately (for 4 people) or freeze.

Great with any kind of whole wheat pasta. Add chicken or prawns and lots of veggies and you have a delicious meal!

++++++



After cooking the spinach and kale, with seasoning added.



The finished product. I used a hand blender in a big bowl since I don't have a stand-up blender anymore (never used it).

I have several bags of whole wheat pasta that I have been buying over my last few shopping trips, and this will be great with those. Hubby loved the flavor and was eating it with a spoon before I stopped him. :)

For lunches, I cut up watermelon and strawberries, and bought some roast beef for sandwiches. I haven't posted any bento boxes in a while, but here is one from a couple of weeks ago.


This was the bacon-wrapped chicken, roasted carrots, blue-cheese coleslaw, and a cut-up granola bar. Delicious, but too many days of it was not a good idea.

The last thing I made this weekend was shredded pork. I got the recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything app. I was browsing through it on my iPhone, and was amazed at how easy it sounded. I usually make shredded pork BBQ-style in the crockpot, but it requires a LOT of barbecue sauce, and then it can't be eaten as anything else. This version can be used in tacos or BBQ or anything I feel like having.

It was super-easy, and even better I didn't have to print out the recipe; I opened the app up on my iPad and just read it from the screen!



I did not follow the last sentence about using pork shoulder; I couldn't find one at any of the 3 grocery stores I went to, so I did it with a 2-pound loin roast. Then I quartered a large onion, added plenty of minced garlic, salt, black pepper, 2 bay leaves, and a good seasoning of Northwoods.




The whole recipe is this:
1. Cut up pork into 1-inch cubes, add all the seasonings, onion and garlic into a Dutch oven. Cover with water and heat until it boils. Turn down to simmer so it still bubbles, and let cook for 1 hour until the pork is tender.
(I let it go longer because I had the leaner roast. I did taste-test it at that time, and added a little more kosher salt and some Worchestershire.)
2. When pork is tender, let cool. Remove pieces from liquid, and shred it with your fingers.

That was the whole thing!

I think we are back on track this week. Fingers crossed!
Next up: catching up on all my blogs. I think my Shelley had a birthday last week. Woohoo!

And how were YOU last week?

Sunday Cooking: An extra-long holiday weekend

Hello, internet! I hope you all had a restful Memorial Day weekend; that extra day off I took on Friday was just what I needed. I am refreshed and ready to tackle the world again!

Hubby and I both did our share of relaxing this weekend, but we managed to get some work done too. Hubby set up our little back porch for the summer (see above) and re-did the "garden patch" on the other side. Now that the re-paving project is complete on our side of the condo complex, he was able to renovate our tiny little patch of grass. One of the bonuses of the re-paving was that they put in cement edging along our back entrance and in fact redid two of the sidewalk sections onto our back patio.

We went from this:



to this:



Much nicer!

We also finally acknowledged that we do not have green thumbs so trying to plant anything is hopeless. Hubby got red rocks instead to fill the space, and planted all the pink flamingos (Christmas gifts from my sister) around the edges. He found the only low-light planter at the home improvement store, and we are taking bets on how long it lasts. I think it came out great.







Meanwhile, I shopped and cooked, and cooked a little more. On Saturday I went to the first farmer's market of the season with my girlfriend J and my babyfriend; it's still so early in the season so there was a limited selection. I picked up asparagus, strawberries, fresh shallots, and a basil plant. I always think I am going to buy a basil plant in the summer, and then I forget and I can never find one and end up paying ridiculous sums of money for bunches of picked basil through the summer. I remembered this year!

It was crazy hot all weekend, so I divided up the cooking between Sunday and Monday, and actually did it in the early morning before it was too miserable to cook. On Sunday, I roasted a batch of carrots and a head of garlic for a pasta salad. I seasoned the carrots with olive oil, kosher salt and Penzey's Northwoods Seasoning, and roasted it at 350 for an hour. Heating up my kitchen like that was worth it; it was by far my most delicious batch yet.



Coleslaw was my next order of business. We were watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives the night before, and were both riveted by a blue-cheese coleslaw that one restaurant had piled on top of a hotdog. I have a low-fat coleslaw recipe from my WW days that I make, so I used that and then tossed a container of blue cheese crumbles into it. A-MAZING. The last few batches of coleslaw I have made have been a spicier mustard flavor, so the cool deep blue of the cheese was a nice change in flavor palate.



Blue Cheese Coleslaw

1 large bag shredded coleslaw
2-3 TBSP fatfree mayo
6-8 oz plain fatfree yogurt (I used Greek, but regular is good too)
2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
kosher salt
cracked pepper
celery seed (optional)
Northwoods seasoning (optional, but it was a nice contrast to the blue cheese)
4 oz container blue cheese crumbles

Mix all the ingredients except the coleslaw and blue cheese in a large bowl. Slowly add the coleslaw and mix well so it is all wet. Add more mayo or yogurt as needed. Add in cheese and continue mixing. Season to taste.
(It is better to make this a day ahead to allow the flavors to soak into the cabbage.)

++++++

Next I marinated chicken thighs for grilling, but by the end of Sunday we were both dragging from the heat and in no mood to cook. So we broke down and ordered pizza (my one-month record starts anew!) and finished the cooking in the morning.

I finished prepping the chicken thighs, patting the marinade dry off the chicken and wrapping them in turkey bacon, and Hubby grilled them for us in the early morning. This is also a WW recipe, from their old cookbook Grill It!






Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Thighs
(It was 175 calories and 4 WW points under the old WW points system.)

1 large shallot, finely chopped
2 TBSP red-wine vinegar
2 TBSP low-sodium soy sauce
dried of fresh thyme
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
8 slices turkey bacon

(Note: I had a huge container of chicken thighs, so I tripled the marinade ingredients.)

Combine the shallots, vinegar, soy sauce and thyme in a plastic bag. Add the chicken and let sit in the fridge for 1-24 hours. Rotate the bag occasionally during marinade time.

Remove chicken from marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Wrap each piece in two slices of bacon. Place on grill and cover until bacon is crisp and chicken is cooked through, 6-7 minutes on each side.

Hubby always cooks it longer, thus burning the bacon. Which is fine, because the thighs retain all their moisture and are so juicy and flavorful.



For lunch on Monday, I sliced one up and put in a whole-wheat hotdog bun, added some coleslaw and some pineapple that I cut up (won't last the week, that's for sure). Mmmmm. I was full all day.



Yes, I did prep pineapple and strawberries. The strawberries went on top of a nice slice of angel food cake; it's my summer dessert, and I was thrilled to see that Tony's makes one that is small and rectangular like a pound cake. Much easier to eat and portion out than the giant ones shaped like bundt cakes.





The last thing I made was a pasta salad for lunch for the week. I had been dying to try this Roasted Garlic Pasta Salad I saw over on Budget Bytes for a couple of weeks, so I finally went for it. I am not really a tomato fan, so I substituted the roasted carrots instead since I made them when I made the roasted garlic (she had done hers in the microwave but I wanted the slow-cooked version). OMG, this is so, so good. I love ricotta cheese but have very few recipes where I can use it (I used the skim version, of course). This will sate my ricotta-cheese hunger for quite some time. It is also very filling with the whole-wheat pasta, so it pretty much portions itself into reasonable quantities on its own. It's great re-heated or cold.






The seasoned carrots add a great sweet/spicy flavor, and their roasted softness gives them a sweet potato-like texture. So glad I added them instead of the tomatoes. :)

Alas, the weekend is over and it is time to go back to work. At least I will have plenty to eat! :)

How did you spend your holiday weekend? Any grilled recipes you want to share?

Sunday Cooking: Mystery meat

Here is a pop quiz.

See these ingredients?



What did they become? (Answer at the end.)


The next one is too easy. What did these ingredients become?



Yep, my Babchi's spaghetti sauce. I polished off the last baggie in the first dish, so I knew it was time for a new one. My timing was perfect, as my grocery store was having a sale on crushed and pureed tomatoes -- 99 cents a can. Since all the other ingredients are spices I have on hand, this batch (which will last 2-3 months) will cost me less than $5.

Other items in this week's cooking jag included prepping melon for the week, another batch of mustard coleslaw, and roasting the last Brussels sprouts of the season. They're just too big now, which means they are probably the end of the crop. See you next winter, you amazing baby cabbage heads!



The other big item I made was this spaghetti squash au gratin, from here. You know how I love my spaghetti squash; it's my pasta substitute that I eat almost weekly. I found this recipe through a link or Pinterest, and it grabbed my attention. It's almost like mac and cheese without the mac. Mmmmm. I read in the comments that someone had added ham, and I knew I would be doing the same.

You guys, it was AMAZING.

Before:



After:



I tweaked the recipe of course, replacing the butter with a splash of olive oil, and using low-fat and fatfree sour cream and cheese. Added some Canadian bacon and we were good to go. I can probably go with less cheese next time, but I needed to polish off the bag before it spoiled so I just dumped it in. The ham (and extra cheese) makes it a main dish instead of a side. which is for the best since I am more likely to portion the larger part of my plate. 

All of it took about 3 hours: coleslaw, spaghetti squash au gratin, a batch of sauce, Brussels sprouts, canteloupe, and lastly, the ingredients at the beginning of the post. My grocery bill was again about $75, and we have plenty to eat all week.

I have delicious food made from whole ingredients, I spent a couple of hours cooking so I don't have to for the rest of the week, AND I saved money on food for the week. PLUS, I am now down 6 pounds since the beginning of the year.

Win, win, win, win. I am so, so, SO GLAD I have made this Sunday Cooking a habit. I love my foodstyle!

Before I go, it's time for the reveal. These were the ingredients.




Did you guess meatloaf?



Happy eating!