Piiiizza!

Once a week, at our place, is Pizza Day. Just so there´s one evening a week I won´t have to cook.
For me, that meant having just half a pizza , and watching DH eat a whole one. Not what I liked, really.
Yesterday, the prospect of having to carve a frozen pizza in half started me thinking about what it really was I like about pizza, apart that it´s a fast meal.
And I had a revelation of sorts.
What I like about pizza is...the toppings.
Not the doughy, carb-laden crust. The vegetables on top, the melted cheese, the tomatoes. All things I may eat. The crust, on the other hand, is no different from eating a piece of bread where the effect on my weight is concerned. And bread, along with potatoes, is holding the top place of Things I Shouldn´t Eat, based on two years of observing how my body reacts to certain foodstuffs.
Eat them, and gain. Don´t eat them, and maintain or lose.
Whenever I was having a pizza, I was eating something I should be avoiding just because it came with something I like to eat and may eat.
Which, in turn, engineered a bit more of practical thinking.
If I don´t like to eat the crust anyway...
...why not prepare just the toppings?

And that´s exactly what I did.

Take an ovenproof dish (about the size of a pizza). Put a few slices of roast turkey (thin-cut) or lowfat salami (watch out for sugar) on the bottom, covering it. From the freezer, pick up about a pound total of mixed, cubed frozen veggies (I took onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and yellow corn, but any veggie you would also find on a pizza will do), put in a bowl and mix with a tablespoon of olive oil, a bit of salt and a generous sprinkle of Italian herb mix. Spread the mix over the dish, sprinkle a bit of grated cheese on, and put in the oven at the setting you´d use for pizza, just about twice as long as you´d keep a pizza in.

Voila- crustless pizza. As tasty as they come. The only disadvantage is that, of course, you´ll have to eat it with a fork and knife out of the dish instead of hand-feeding yourself off a platter. But then, sitting down at a table for dinner is a good idea anyway.
I´ll definitely do this more often. 


Julia

Recipe Monday: Pasta with tuna sauce

..or, as our Italian friends call it "al tonno"!
I put a lot of veggies into the sauce for a really balanced meal.

First, you prepare and cut up the vegetables. Think onions, peas, carrots, bell peppers, celery- whatever catches your fancy and can be cut up in small pieces. I admit to being lazy and using pre-cut frozen vegetable mix and onion cubes.
Stir-fry these in a bit of olive oil until they begin to get tender. Add some olives, some diced peperoni if you have any (again, to taste- I guess jalapenos would be too hot), season with dried oregano, add some concentrated tomatoes (you can get these packaged in a tube) and a bit of water so the ingredients will mix well. Drain a can of water-packed tuna, add to the mix, and allow to simmer at a low temperature with the lid closed. Stir regularly in between to avoid the sauce sticking to the pot. Season with chili powder to taste.
In the meantime, cook a sufficient amount of pasta ( I prefer spirelli) to taste in a bigger pot. Drain, then mix with the sauce and serve.
For good measure, you can put a bit of grated parmesan cheese on top. 
I use the pot the pasta was cooked in for mixing, so, I take one that´s big enough to hold both the cooked pasta and the sauce, with some room to spare.
The good thing about this is that you can stock all of the ingredients in your pantry and freezer, and preparing it with those frozen prepared veggies takes about twenty minutes. It tastes not at all fishy because of the oregano and chili powder, and can also be used for using up those last vegetables in the crisper.
If you don´t like to use tuna, a similar dish may be prepared with cubed pieces of chicken breast (fry them until done first, then add the veggies etc. into the same pot) or even with cubed bacon, or for the vegetarians out there with tofu or feta cheese (though you should add the latter only directly to the dishes when serving to avoid it sticking to the pots).

Enjoy!

Julia

Recipe monday: Zucchini wasps

Low-carb and kiddy-proof dinner for two (or more, if the zucchino is big enough)
1 bi-i-ig zucchino, cut lenghtwise and hollowed out, but with the skin still on to keep everything together,  
put a thin coating of olive oil all over its surface and set it on an ovenproof dish.
Into the hollow comes a mix of ground beef, onions (cubed), concentrated tomato puree, pepper, salt and lots of oregano. Top it off with a generous sprinkling of grated cheese. 30 to 45 minutes in the oven, at the temperature you´d use for pizza,  and dinner is ready. (I don´t do temperature conversion,  but I use 180 degrees centigrade)
Why I call these wasps? I cut a thin stripe of the skin off the bottom of the hollowed-out zucchini to keep them from toppling over, and I cut narrow stripes from it and put them on top of the filling before I put the cheese on. The end result looks like a big wasp without wings, so, with a bit of creative decorating... :).

Enjoy!

Julia

Recipe Monday: Organic ramen spice

Ramen... it´s the old standard standby if all you have is a water cooker and a bowl to prepare a quick lunch at work.
For me, it meant getting a headache most of the time I ate the stuff. Until one day, I had the misfortune of spilling some of the ramen broth on a white blouse, leaving an ugly reddish splotch that proved resistant to each and every method of spot removal I tried on it.
So that was what I had been putting inside my body? Just what the heck was inside those little bags labelled "spice mix"? Apart an unhealthy dose of monosodium glutamate?

So, I decided to find out if there would be a healthier way of seasoning my lunch noodles.
It turned out there was.
I took plain chinese mie noodles to start with, you can of course use the noodles from a ramen pack minus the spice.
Then I bought myself a cheap electric coffee grinder that is, now, used exclusively for grinding spices.(Don´t use your regular coffee mill for this unless you want to have your coffee taste of spices).
And used it for grinding up a mixture of dried chili flakes, laurel leaves (use sparingly), curry powder, and powdered onions, plus a good amount of a dried mixture of leeks, carrots, parsley, and celery that is sold hereabouts under the name of "soup herbs". The resulting powder I mixed in with a portion of organic dried beef broth concentrate ( chicken will do, too, or vegetable broth for the non-carnivores out there).
I put the mix into an airtight container, which I took along to the office with the plain noodles.One teaspoonful of it will spice up a bowl of ramen noodles as well as the mixes furnished by manufacturers, without the side effects of artificial aromas or monosodium glutamate. You can, of course, tweak the spices to suit your personal taste. And, the mixture also is great for spicing up a pot of vegetable soup.
Try and enjoy!



Julia

Eat for the heat

I don´t know about you, but I just don´t feel like having a heavy meal when it´s scorchingly hot outside. Which is fine with me because there are plenty of non-fattening things to eat, too.
Think, for example...
-Italian: as in caprese salad with mozarella and tomatoes, with some olive oil, balsamico and black pepper on top, and of course lots of fresh basil from our balcony garden,
-Mexican: as in tuna salad with fresh corn (frozen off the cob) and frozen mexican veggie mix that just has to be thawed halfway before mixing (keeps the salad cold and fresh, too), seasoned with chili powder and a few pickled capers for taste, and some olive oil, too, then left to thaw fully (takes about ten to fifteen minutes ).
-Indian: as in fried chicken breast seasoned with curry or tandoori spice, mixed with vegetables and fruit (I prefer ananas) , some roasted almonds sliced thinly and rice.

Now I know the natives of these countries doubtlessly have much better and much more original recipes to offer, but for me, these are things I can prepare fast (an important consideration because I work full time), and they are one heck of a lot tastier than most convenience dishes I could buy to just microwave.
What is also important for me is that I have much more control of which additives I consume if I cook our food myself. Which also means  not having to contend with any weird side effects from them.
I love to experiment with different ways of preparing food, and luckily, my DH likes most of it :). 
So, tonight, by his special request, will be Italian night again, with Caprese salad and -for him only-some ciabatta.
It will be one of those Tuscany evenings on our balcony again, surrounded by the aromes of fresh herbs and enjoying the cool evening air. Almost like a holiday. I´m looking forward to it.


Julia