Breakfast Frozen Mango Fat Burning Smoothie

Today was my day off so it was a good day to start I think, so I could take my time figuring how to start this. I did wake up late however. It was a nice gloomy rainy day to sleep in and my tummy was hurting a bit from the cold.

Anyways lets get this show on the road.

Weight: 140lbs
Wake time: 9:30am
Breakfast time: 10am (consumed)
Cost: $1.50? (not sure. I already had the mango and stevia around the house)

FROZEN MANGO FAT-BURNING SMOOTHIE

PHASE 1

(1 SERVING)

1/2 CUP FROZEN MANGO (OR STRAWBERRIES OR PINEAPPLE)

1/2 CUP ICE CUBES

1/2 LEMON

1/4 STEVIA

2 MINT LEAVES OR 1/4 TSP PEPPERMINT TEA LEAVES

Add mango and ice to a blender with 3/4 cups water.

Juice the lemon and add stevia.

Sprinkle the mint and mix/puree until smooth.

Enjoy 8 to 10 rice crackers.

Notes:

Relatively easy to make but I forgot to buy rice crackers and mint leaves... so this meal was sort of incomplete.

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Pistachio Crusted Chicken or Pork

Since coming down with the plague early on last week and still having not fully shaken it, the fella and I have been falling back on a lot of old favorites for cooking. That means a lot of African, Indian, and Chinese food modified to fit the diet. This usually works out pretty well but requires the fella to take on the cooking since I dont have the stamina for food that requires constant attention or the brain power to understand the multi step directions. And he has actually been thrilled to be off dish washing duty and back to cooking up a storm.

Our other fall back recipes are simple but interesting meat dishes from Ms. love her or hate her Rachel Ray. This pistachio crust is out of this world and requires the level of cooking skills Im up to in my weakened state. The hardest part is shelling a million pistachios without eating all of them, I just cant bring myself to pay $3 more for pre-shelled nuts so its a necessary evil. The fella and I actually had fun with this chore on this particular day, he shelled nuts and pitted olives while I did the intricate vegetable chopping for the side dish and we had a nice assembly line going on. Both dishes got finished at the same time and we had a nice relaxing Sunday dinner.

Weve done this yummy pistachio thing with both chicken and pork and both are equally yummy. Even if youre not on a crazy French diet I would suggest leaving out the breadcrumbs in the original recipe however. The pistachio crust by itself is subtle and well rounded, giving the meat a crunch and a nice flavor. With the breadcrumbs the garlic and lemon disappears and it tastes like homemade Shake n Bake. No thanks. If thats your thing feel free to bread crumb it up.

This goes surprisingly well with Bouluds fussy Tapenade Salad. I can only imagine what would happen with overly perky Rachel Ray and snobby Daniel Boulud actually at the same table. Its a rather amusing mental image but Im not sure which one would walk away alive in the end. Hmm. Their food together however made the best meal Ive had in a while.

Pistachio Crusted Chicken or Pork

1/2 cup pistachios, shelled
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
(original recipe also calls for 1/4 cup breadcrumbs which help nuts stick to meat but dulls the flavor of the dish and adds an odd texture when baked)

4 chicken breasts or boneless pork chop, 1-inch thick
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup oil (I only use enough to keep meat from sticking to pan)


Preheat the oven to 400°. Cover baking sheet with aluminum foil and set aside.

Using a food processor, finely grind the nuts, garlic, lemon peel and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Transfer to a shallow bowl (whisk in breadcrumbs if youre going to use them.)

Season the chicken or pork with salt and pepper. Dip each piece of meat into the egg, then coat with the nut mixture.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the meat and cook until golden, about 2 minutes on each side then place on the baking sheet. Bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers 140° for pork or 170° for chicken, about 20 minutes.

Original recipe from Everyday With Rachel Ray.

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Antipasto Pasta

Lets talk carbs. Specifically pasta.

Yes the whole point of this diet is to cut out a lot of carbs and all sugar but you can still have carbs there are just a lot of rules. First you can only have carbs one meal out of the day, preferably for lunch when your metabolism is working harder. That means one carb/low fat meal and one protein meal a day. Secondly only whole grain carbs are allowed, brown rice and whole wheat pasta for example. Lastly the carbs have to be eaten with as little fat as possible so that your body doesnt absorb a load of fat along with the carbs.

So what does this leave for you to eat for low fat/carb meals? Plenty you just have to get creative, give up the idea of ever having cheese on your pasta, and look really hard for the couple grocery story products that you can eat. Lucky for you Ive already done the last step, the intensely annoying and soul draining part for you. Seriously I was torn between breaking into tears or throwing sauces on the floor the first couple times I tried to shop and found how little there was to eat that was sugar free and diet friendly.

The other rule with pasta is that it has to be very thin angel hair pasta made with hard wheat. Montignac claims the pasta dough being forced through the thin metal pasta extruder during production causes a reaction in the wheat that makes it harder to break down into bad carbs while being digested. A lot of his quasi science leaves me scratching my head so I just take his word for it and any of my scientist readers can let me know if this is total crap.

There are three pasta brands Ive found in stores in Madison that fit all these quantifiers. Bella Terra Organic Capellini Angel Hair, Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Angel Hair, and Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted Grain Angel Hair. In regular grocery stores these brands hide in the organic section rather than in with the regular pasta.

Pasta sauces get a little more complicated depending on how strict you want to take the low fat rule. Ive found some good sauces with less than 2 grams of fat per serving from Barilla and Classico. The roasted red pepper and tomato basil in both brands were especially tasty. I was very surprised that the least expensive brands more consistently were sugar free.

In the past Ive been posting pasta recipes with penne and lasagna noodles going off the French version of the diet that didnt specify the angel hair only rule. Apparently the American diet needed more rules to keep us fat lazy poor eaters under control. Substituting angel hair in for my earlier recipes will make them perfectly legal for the diet however.

For now Ill post a very tasty and very easy recipe that will work for the weight maintenance stage of the diet when you can add a little more fat into carb meals without any dire consequence. This is when you arent losing weight but are following most of the same rules to keep your weight steady. It works, I havent lost or gained a single pound while eating this way. Next week the fella and I are going hard core on the weight loss phase again to see how much more weight we can get rid of, though the vacation from counting GI levels has been nice. I highly recommend taking a month off from the strict eating after a couple months just so the low GI doesnt break your will to live too much.

This recipe just involves tossing some marinated veggies into store bought pasta sauce to make it a little more special and give it a home made feel. It was delicious. We had pan roasted cauliflower with thyme and lemon juice as a side and El Coto Rioja which I believe I may have already raved about once before. It really is a wonderful spicy Spanish wine in the under $10 price range. With wine this good for that price I see no reason to spend more. Plus Im a sucker for quirky labels.

Antipasto Pasta

1 16-ounce package whole wheat angel hair pasta
1 28-ounce jar sugar free pasta sauce
1 4-ounce jar marinated artichokes, drained, halved
1 10 to 12-ounce jar roasted red bell peppers, drained, cut into strips
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives
1 packed cup fresh basil leaves, sliced or chopped

Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, following package directions, until tender. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta water.

Meanwhile, place the marinara sauce, artichokes, peppers, and olives in a medium saucepan. Bring to the boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer for 5 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Add sauce to pasta. Stir to combine. If desired, add some of the cooking water if too thick. Top with basil. Serve.

Original recipe from one of my favorite cooking blogs Enlightened Cooking.

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Gluten Free Pistachio Cake

Another day another failed soufflé  I shouldnt be surprised but I still am every time.  And yet Ive been lucky enough that of my four recent unfluffy unimpressive soufflés they have all been at least tasty, making up in flavor for what they lack in beauty.  And this one worked out exactly that same way.  Le sigh.

Pistachio cake with rose water syrup sounded like a recipe too good to pass up.  And the fella is a freak for pistachios so I knew I would get points for making a dessert he would go crazy for.  Perhaps next time I cook something that requires him wash every dish in the kitchen twice he wont curse me so much.  When I told him what I was making it also got me help shelling about a pound of nuts which otherwise could have taken me hours going at it alone.

The rest of the baking didnt go so smoothly.  It was nearly impossible to fold fluffy egg whites into a sugary pistachio paste.  Im still not quite sure how that was supposed to work out but I did the best I could and ended up with a cake that alternately had chunks of nuts or areas of egg white when it was cooked.  Which sounds kind of unattractive but youd be surprised how good it is when covered in rose water syrup.

Also I didnt realize fructose would react so differently than sugar to being baked.  The original recipe called for baking the cake for 45 minutes but after about 20 minutes mine started smelling burnt.  So I had to do the biggest soufflé no no and open my horrible windowless oven and see what was going on in there.  Turns out I had a very very brown cake that had fallen from  fluffiness long ago.  Im not sure what I should have done differently to prevent this failure but it tasted just fine so Ill take the hit for the sugarless team and let the world know that fructose in a soufflé is not a good idea.  If you figure out how to make this work let me know.

Regardless of what it looked like the fella and I had no problem eating this sweet, gooey creation all last week.  It was worth the work.

Pistachio Cake

SYRUP:

1/2 cup fructose (or 1 1/ 2 cups sugar)

3/4 cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons rose water

CAKE:

5 eggs, separated

1/3 cup fructose (or 1 cup powdered sugar)

1 1/2 cups pistachios, finely ground

1/3 cup pistachios, chopped coarsely

Make the syrup first.  Bring fructose, water and lemon juice to a boil and simmer just until fructose is dissolved.  The syrup will be very thin and will not reduce.  Remove from heat and stir in rose water.  Let syrup cool to room temperature and then put in refrigerator to chill.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 or 10 inch diameter nonstick round cake pan.

In a large bowl beat the egg yolks and the fructose until it is a pale creamy texture.  Add the finely ground pistachios and mix very well.  Beat the egg whites until stiff in a small bowl using a standing mixer(read Julia Childs advice in Mastering the Art of French Cooking on egg whites for more in depth tips on how to make it work) and then fold them gently into the pistachio mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan, sprinkling with the course chopped pistachios and cook for about 25 minutes (45 if using sugar.)  The cake will poof up slightly like a soufflé and will pass the toothpick test when finish.  Immediately turn the cake over onto a deep serving dish.  Using a tooth pick make holes over the top of the cake then pour the syrup over it.  The cake will taste best after 2 hours when the syrup has had time to soak into the cake.

Made Montignac friendly from a recipe by Claudia Roden in Arabesque.

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