Spinach and Tomato Macaroni and Cheese

 Spinach and Tomato Macaroni and Cheese

I got the basics of this recipe from Eat Shrink and Be Merry.  But I took out the peas and mushrooms (because peas in Macaroni and Cheese is just weird) and added spinach and tomatoes because it seemed like a good idea.  I also didn't use whole wheat pasta like they wanted because that just tastes gross.  The end result was fan-freaking-tastic.  Originally, I didn't use salt but it was a bit bland.  So I added some salt to the recipe.  I may never eat Kraft dinner again.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups uncooked macaroni (I use Catelli Smart to add some fiber but still have white pasta)
• 1 Tbsp margarine (I use Becel's in the pink tub)
• ½ cup finely chopped onion
• 4 slices chopped turkey bacon
• 1 cup chopped spinach
• 1 small diced tomato
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• ½ tsp dry ground mustard
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 can evaporated milk (I use skim)
• 1 cup partly skim mozzarella cheese – split into ¾ cup and ¼ cup
• 1 cup old cheddar cheese – split into ¾ cup and ¼ cup (I use PC Blue Menu to cut a bit of fat)

Directions

• Cook the macaroni according to the package and drain
• Wilt spinach over low heat
• In a deep, oven safe 10-12 inch skillet over medium/low heat, melt margarine
• Cook onion and turkey bacon in butter stirring frequently for about ten minutes (until onions are clear and soft but not carmelized)
• Add spinach and tomatoes. Mix well.
• Preheat broiler
• Whisk together evaporated milk, salt, mustard and cornstarch
• Add milk sauce to the skillet and mix well. Let cook, stirring occasionally until sauce is thickened and bubbling.
• Remove the skillet from heat and add in the 2 - ¾ cup cheeses. Mix well until the cheese has all melted in.
• Add the macaroni and mix until it's all blended well
• Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the entire mixture and place under the broiler for about 3 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown

Lemon Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

I wanted to try making my own stir fry sauce and came across a few on allrecipes.com.  The lemon one caught my eye and seemed pretty easy.  What I ended up with was a light yet very flavourful sauce.  This one was a winner.  It was my first attempt at Asian that ended up actually resembling the taste of what you might get at an Asian restaurant.  And the whole thing is only 12 Weight Watchers points on the old system.  The following is what I did:

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil

2 chicken breasts, cut into chunks/cubes

½ large onion cut into chunks

½ green pepper cut into chunks

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

2 cloves minced or crushed garlic

½ tsp ground ginger

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup chicken broth

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp splenda

2 tsp corn starch

2 tbsp water

Directions

Sauce

Combine lemon juice, chicken broth, soy sauce and sugar in a bowl or cup

Glaze

Combine corn starch and water

Stir Fry

Heat oil in wok over medium-high heat

Add onions and stir fry until about half cooked

Add garlic and ginger and stir fry for about a minute

Add green pepper and fry for about 2 more minutes

Add mushrooms and chicken and stir fry until chicken is almost cooked

Add sauce and glaze and keep stir frying until chicken is cooked and sauce starts to thicken

Serve over rice

What I Learned

• It is important that the chicken chunks all be about the same size so that some don't dry out.
• Garlic burns really quickly if you don't keep stirring.
• The sauce was a little thin.  I may want to add cornstarch.
• I don't know if it is necessary to have the sauce and glaze separate.  If I mix in the cornstarch with the sauce before pouring it in, it may be easier and thicker.

Curried Lamb and Yogurt

Curried Lamb in Yogurt Sauce

I modified a recipe from a book of recipes for two people.  I thought this was really good will definitely do it again.  But it was a bit too sweet and spicy so I'll tell you what I did and then what I learned.

Ingredients

9 ounces of lamb cut into thin strips

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp yellow curry powder

½ tsp ground cumin

salt to taste

black pepper to taste

½ tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp ground ginger

1 small onion thinly slicecd

150 ml plain greek yogurt

1 tsp crushed garlic

2 tbsp olive oil divided

Directions

Combine the chili powder, curry powder, cumin, salt and pepper with 1 tbsp of oil in a bowl

Add the lamb to the bowl and stir thoroughly to coat

Place the bowl, covered, in the fridge for at least ½ hour

Heat the remaining oil in a wok – I used 7 for a setting

Add the cardamom and shake the wok to mix

Add the ginger, garlic and onion and stir fry until soft

Add the coated lamb and stir fry until lamb is cooked (about 4-5 minutes)

Add the yogurt and stir until well mixed and coated

Let cook until very hot

Serve immediately

What I learned

- 1 tsp of chili powder and 1 tsp of ginger is a lot.  I would cut it down to 1/2 of each next time
- It didn't have enough curry taste.  I would maybe add more of that
- A proper cut of lamb is difficult to find in Saskatoon.  I had to go to a Halal grocery and they cut me some real nice fillet steaks.
- This would have gone really well served over white rice.  I served it with a premixed couscous side dish.

Creamy Curry Sauce

Here's what I did for supper tonight.  The only thing home made about this is the sauce.  The corn is just Green Giant's steamed vegetables.  The sweet potato fries are pre-cut and cooked to package specifications.  The steak is just a 6 oz pre-tenderized hip steak.  But I've been playing around with white sauces and I think I finally have it down.  The whole thing is 4 weight watchers points on the old system.  I used curry and cumin because I really like the flavour of curry and think it goes well with beef.  The recipe below is what I did.  After that is what I learned.

Creamy Curry Sauce

Ingredients

2 tbsp 64% less Becel Margarine (the pink tub)

1 1/2 tbsp corn starch

1/2 cup 1% milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp mild curry powder

1/4 tsp ground cumin

(The curry and cumin can be replaced with whatever seasonings you like and the quantities adjusted to your tastes.)

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Add milk and stir

Add salt and your other seasonings. Stir to mix.

Slowly add corn starch, stirring all the time to mix.

Continue cooking over low heat until sauce is smooth and thickened.

What I learned

1. It's too salty.  The salt overpowered the curry flavour.  So that should be cut down to 1/4 teaspoon.
2. This makes enough for 2-3 people if you are going to top meat with it.  Me being the glutton that I am, I used the whole thing and bathed my steak and fries in it.
3. When you are cooking the sauce to let it thicken, don't stir it too much.  Let the low heat do its work.  It will seem like it is getting lumpy but you can stir all that out once it thickens.
4. On my stove, low heat is about 2-2.5.  Yours may be different.

Baked Scallop Rigatoni in White Sauce

Serves 3-4

This is by far the most ambitious thing I've ever tried.  It is the first time I have ever used all four of my oven burners at the same time.  As per my M.O., I will give you the recipe as I did it and tell you what I learned at the end.

Ingredients

2 tsp virgin olive oil

110 gm scallops (defrosted)

½ cup sliced mushrooms

½ cup chopped onion (I used Walla Walla sweet onion)

2 slices turkey bacon (cooked and crumbled)

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

1 cup 1% milk

¾ tsp basil

¾ tsp dillweed

½ tsp salt

255 gm uncooked rigatoni

60 gm shredded partly skim mozzarella cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

White Sauce:

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Add milk

Add dillweed, basil and salt. Stir to mix.

Slowly add flour, stirring all the time to mix.

Continue cooking over low heat, stirring frequently until sauce is smooth and thickened.

Scallops:

In an skillet (or similar), heat oil over medium-high heat

Add onions and cook, stirring, for three minutes

Add scallops and continue cooking for two minutes

Add mushrooms and continue cooking for one minute or until mushrooms are cooked

Remove from heat and add bacon. Stir to mix

Rigatoni:

Cook according to package directions and drain

Bake:

In a large mixing bowl, combine rigatoni, sauce and scallop mixture. Mix well

Pour mix into a 7 cup baking dish

Top with the shredded cheese

Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is golden brown

What I learned:

1. White sauce takes a long time to thicken and cook.  It would be a good idea to just make it first and then do all of the other stuff after.  Having four burners going at once was a bit overwhelming.
2. This recipe doesn't need the scallops to be good.  But I like the flavour of scallops so I will keep using them.  But the recipe needs more of them.  They are overpowered by everything else.  So I would use about 1.5 times as many next time.
3. There's too many onions in the recipe.  I would probably cut it down to about 1/4 or 1/3 cup of onions.
4. If you do not want to bake it, you wouldn't have to.  You could just pour the sauce with the scallop mix on cooked pasta and that would work.
5. While my white sauce recipe works, it is a bit bland.  I'll have to play with the seasonings and see what works.  It also has a bit too much of a flour taste.  If anyone can tell me how to get rid of that, I would be in your debt.
6. There is a lot of rigatoni (3x the portion size on the package).  Cutting that to about 200 grams would probably work too.

Vanilla Almond Dutch Bunny

I was at my girlfriend's place last weekend and we were watching the Food Network.  I saw this thing called a Souffle Pancake and thought it looked good.  On further investigation, I found out it is called a Dutch Bunny.  So I found a recipe and decided to tweak it and make it my own.  The original called for bananas and icing sugar.  But I'm on Weight Watchers and am always looking for ways to cut out a few points.  I really like the flavour of almonds and vanilla so I did that.  I ended up with about 5 pancakes in one heavy cake-like patty.  Overall, this was really tasty, easy to make and, with my tweaks, fits right into my Weight Watchers plan.  I will definitely do this one again.  This is what I did:

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• ¾ Cup skim milk
• ¾ cup Robin Hood Nutri Flour Blend flour
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
• ½ tsp pure almond extract
• 2 tbsp Splenda
• ½ cup (120 gm) Becel 64% less margarine (pink tub)
• Aunt Jemima Lite Syrup

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450
• Beat eggs and milk until well blended
• Add flour, salt, vanilla, almond, Splenda and mix with a fork until just mixed. It will be lumpy.
• Melt butter in an oven-proof skillet.
• When butter is melted, pour the batter on top.
• Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
• Serve immediately with syrup

What I learned

1. Nobody needs a full one of these.  It is very rich.  I ate a whole one and feel like I'm going to get the sugar jitters.  So I would make one to share and also some sausage or bacon and maybe potato fritters for a good, big breakfast.
2. It gets a very buttery taste that, at times, overpowers the vanilla and almond.  Maybe next time, I should cut down on the amount of butter.
3. There were little pockets of brown vanilla inside due to it not mixing properly.  Next time I will mix those in with the eggs and milk before the flour and see what happens.
4. If presentation is important to you, it is important to pour it evenly over the butter and try to cover the whole area.  I found that it baked quickly and, the parts of butter that didn't get the batter just dissipated and I ended up with a lopsided (yet no less tasty) dish; as you can see from the picture.
5. This may be just as good and healthier with about 6 egg whites.  If I do try that, I will let you all know how it turns out.

Steak and Stir Fry for One

Today I decided to go for my first grilled steak of the spring season.  Many of you will want to barbecue this but I used my indoor grill.  Hence, the grey coloring.  I'll tell you what I did and then share what I learned at the end.  Let's start with the steak:

I marinated it for six hours in O'Doul's Amber beer for six hours.  I like to use non-alcoholic beer because it gives it that good beer flavour while still being fairly healthy.  Then, I simply grilled it until I got the desired doneness.

For the vegetables, I used a stir fry mix from Sobey's and added some more mushrooms because I really like mushrooms.  I heated some water in a wok on high and added the vegetables.  Then I fried them, stirring very frequently until the vegetables were nice and soft.  Then I drained the veggies of any excess water and added just enough sweet and sour sauce to coat the vegetables.  I then stir fried them for a few more minutes to let the sauce bond with the vegetables.  They started to get a little dry so I added a little more water and fried them (stirring all the while) until the water was all gone.

This seemed to work well and was all pretty experimental on my part.  But I did learn a few things:

1. For the steak, I should have probably pierced it before I put it in the beer.  This (I assume) would allow the beer to fully penetrate the meat.
2. I should probably season the steak with a little salt and pepper or other seasonings before grilling.  It was a little bland.  It still had the nice beer flavour but something was missing.  I'll try that next time.
3. For the vegetables, I could probably skip the draining and just add the sauce and stir until the liquid is gone.  I'd probably get the same result.  Again, I'll try that next time too.
4. It is possible to get a nice stir fry without using oil.  I hypothesized this after seeing the Extreme Pita's practice of grilling with water.  It worked.  I got nice, light and flavourful vegetables without the added weight watchers points that olive oil brings.  And I don't feel like I ate overly greasy food that is being torpedoed through my colon as I type.

As for the Weight Watchers points values, this ended up being only 16 points (3 for the sweet and sour sauce and 13 for the meat).  That would vary depending on the kind of steak you use.  So, if you're on Weight Watchers, consult your guides for steak points for an accurate measure.  The "problem" is that I've only had one other meal today and it was Weight Watcher's soup and a cheese sandwich.  This leaves me with 32 points for the rest of the day.  So I guess I can have some ice cream later if I want.