Healthy Alternative Spaghetti with meat sauce

Tonight's recipe is a little different than the normal. A friend mentioned, the other day, that I should start posting recipes with meat as well, especially since I'm a bit more of a carnivore than a vegetarian. Recently, I've decided to start taking my diet more seriously. In that statement, I mean the primary definition of diet. I'm hoping to make some real changes to how I eat, not just for short term weight loss, but for long term health. Tonight, I made a meat dish that incorporates two things I love and won't give up (red sauce and pasta). Tonight was a sort of Spaghetti Chicken Stir Fry.

This recipe is pretty simple. Here is what you will need:

• chicken breast cut into strips (1lb) or stir fry chicken (as sold at Albertson's and Publix)
• mushrooms (1 package)
• onion (1/2 large onion) - I prefer vidalia
• oregano
• cilantro
• pasta (1 package)
• marinara sauce (1 can/jar) 

1. Begin by putting the pasta on to boil, as this will take the longest. 
2. Spray a little pan cooking spray into your frying pan -- sautee the chicken, onion and mushroom until the chicken has browned on the outside. I usually cook on medium to medium high (5-7 on electric stove top), adding maybe a 1/2 tsp of oregano and 1/2 tsp cilantro  as chicken is just starting to brown. 
3. At the same time that you being the chicken, put pasta sauce on to warm, cooking at a medium temp -- I suggest covering
4. Serve together, topped with a pinch of parmesan cheese

Overall, you will find this to be fewer calories than spaghetti with ground beef or meatballs -- 3 oz of chicken with the mushrooms and onions makes it feel somewhat hearty and very satisfying. Let me know what you think!
 

Meatless Monday -- Locally Grown Veggie Night

It has been a few weeks since I posted a new recipe on here. Gramma Kat (my mother) was here for two weeks, and life has just been hectic for a couple weeks prior and since. I've done probably 60 hours of yard work in the last three weeks, as well as plenty of indoor projects as well.

Tonight's recipe was very simple. This past weekend, the Apopka Woman's Club hosted their annual Apopka Art & Foliage Festival , and I was able to pick up two beautiful locally grown cucumbers (the one we had tonight was one of the best I've had in a while) and a massive locally grown eggplant, fresh picked Saturday in Zellwood.

I may have said this on past blogs, or to some of you in person, but the eggplant has always been a huge challenge to me, and I've just never enjoyed it at home, without frying it. That is, until a few weeks ago. The following recipe is one I love and has pleased everyone that has had it. I usually think of eggplant as a side dish (unless served with pasta and red sauce), but it was the main course tonight.

Joey's Breaded Eggplant (feeds 2-3 as a main course, 4-6 as a side dish):

You will need: 1 large eggplant; 3 large eggs, breadcrumbs (italian or plain), italian cheese mix

Preheat the oven to 350;  lay out two bowls -- one for the egg wash (you will want to whip them, but not until you are ready to start dipping, or the egg begins to separate) and one for the bread crumbs (big enough to roll it around). After slicing the eggplant, wash in egg and cover in breadcrumbs on each side. You can add some spices, like basil (my preference), italian seasonings, or thyme. Bake for about 12 minutes, remove from oven and top with cheese, baking for another 10 to 12 minutes. By then, they should be firm enough to hold and soft enough to bite into or cut with a fork.

The side ingredient that you see above is one of the most simple and tastiest salads in the world.

Tomato Cuke Salad:

You will need: 1 large cuke, 1 large ugly tomato (or 2 vine tomatos or maybe 3 romas), italian dressing (I use the fat free) and italian cheese

Cut the cuke to desired sizes -- I usually just slice and half them myself. I leave the skin on, as I like the flavor. Cut up your tomatos into ite sized pieces. Add italian dressing and sprinkle some cheese into it. Mix and serve.

To top it off, I managed a locally grown watermelon (local to Florida at least) as our second side dish.

All in all, this was a delicious and somewhat light dinner. It was nice to have something like this after some yard work this evening, and I felt very satisfied with it all. If you try any of the above, let me know what you think.

I've been told that I need to start featuring some of my meaty dishes during the week, so I will try to get one up every week for each now, at least when I have something worth sharing.

This week I will post my vegetarian quiche that I made two weeks in a row, to much satisfaction.

Meatless Mondays -- Corn & Two-Bean Burgers

Just as I post here each and every week, our family continues to take part in Meatless Mondays, dinner edition. At some point, in the near future, maybe we will also make it a full day, with no meat at breakfast, lunch or dinner. However, for now, Erin & I continue to enjoy trying new recipes and seeing what we do and don't like in terms of vegetarian fair.

Tonight, we made Corn & Two Bean Burgers with a side of sweet potato waffle fries.

I think that Erin was somewhat hesitant to try the burgers. I tried to go easy on her, as I've been wanting to try Lentil burgers for some time now. However, we had all the ingredients for this meal, so I chose this option tonight. According to Erin, "they were okay," and said "they weren't bad, I would eat them again." Erin was nonplussed with the consistency. I, on the other hand, really enjoyed them, which is somewhat surprising.

Many of you that know me well, or that join us for dinner here in our home, or out and about, know what a fan of the burger I am. I consider myself a bit of a hamburger virtuoso. In fact, I'd go as far to say that a hamburger is my most favorite food. If I were about to be executed, a hamburger would be a part of my last meal. I've tried all sorts of them, from beef, turkey and chicken, to mushroom, shrimp and even spam.



In form, they took to patty well, and friend to a nice color, very similar to a beef burger (except for the kernels of corn). The consistency was fine. They crisp a little on the outside, but they don't quite hold up as well as a burger would. We topped them with sliced tomato and green leaf lettuce, as well as muenster cheese. I added the ketchup from the recipe, with one accidental change. Instead of chipotle, I used chili powder. It still tasted pretty good.

On the side, we added Alexia All Natural Waffle-Cut Sweet Potato (from the freezer section at Winn Dixie). We'd never made sweet potatoes before, so we cheated, but they were fantastic (and much lower in fat and calories than store bought fries). The girls even ate up the sweet potato fries. I used the extra ketchup from the burgers for my fries, which added a nice zing.

One tip, in my opinion, is to use a lesser bread product than a bun, and we opted for deli flats, which we use in place of buns and bread a lot. Erin feels that it would have been a better burger experience if we had used fancy rolls, so we might try that next time.

I will certainly make these again, and we will certainly eat them again. However, I will continue to search for a good burger alternative for meatless meals. My three mushroom burger was a good example of how good a meatless burger really can be. In the coming weeks, I will make those again and post my own recipe for that.

Until next time, happy eating!

Meatless Mondays - Vegetable Lasagna

Last night, I made my famous Mushroom Lasagna, a constantly evolving dish (read, constantly improving) that sort of morphed into Vegetable Lasagna (click the link -- every time I say vegetable lasagna, I think of this).

In our continuing effort to eat vegetarian on Monday nights, I made this lasagna meatless. It isn't necessarily low calorie, but its lower calorie than a typical lasagna.

I started with two types of mushrooms, baby bella and white mushrooms (just the caps, I don't use the stump, myself -- note, I often use cremini as well, but they weren't available at Target, so we skipped them), and sliced up some zucchini. In addition, I used lasagna noodles, red sauce (1.5 jars), white sauce (1/2 jar), low fat sour cream (you can use ricotta or cottage cheese in its place), mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese and spinach (i used frozen, but it must be defrosted and wrung out completely -- you can use fresh).

I don't cook the noodles in advance. Save the time and effort. I start with a very thin layer of red sauce at the bottom of the pan, and a layer of noodles, covered in a thicker layer of red sauce. Next, I made a layer of thinly sliced zucchini, followed by a layer of white sauce. On top of the white sauce, I put the layer of baby bellas and spinach, covered by a thin layer of sour cream. Next, the second layer of noodles, covered again in red sauce, with a second layer of zucchini and the white mushrooms. On a side note, for the mushrooms, I mostly just capped them, and cut them into halves (except the large ones) as chunky mushrooms, in my opinion, make it feel bulkier and more satisfying. On top, I put a good layer of mozzarella cheese, sprinkled a small amount of parmesan cheese and added a few small dollops of red sauce for appearance. You'll want to bake it for about 45 minutes, at 375 degrees. It is best if you let it sit for about 30 minutes, to solidify, but if your family are hungry hungry hippos (I'm not calling anyone fat here!), they won't likely want to wait. The final result looked like this:













I served this tasty dish with bread sticks and a veggie salad. The veggie salad was composed of the leftover zucchini slices (halved), carrot pieces and chunked tomato in a zesty Italian dressing and a little bit of mozzarella.

I would love to hear if any of you guys try this, and what you think of it. My family loves it, even though it changes every time. I wouldn't recommend shiitake musrooms or oyster mushrooms for this lasagna, as I didn't personally enjoy the lasagna much the times I tried adding either of those.

As always, happy eating! I'll be back next week, hopefully with something somewhat exotic (like lentil burgers).

Meatless Mondays (Tuesday Edition) -- Cauliflower Crust Pizza

In our continuing effort to better our lives, Erin and I continue to practice our Meatless Mondays... This week, we were invited out to dinner on Monday night at El Potro Mexican Restaurant (Apopka's only Mexican restaurant, I believe, and quite a good one too!) and so we paused Meatless Monday for a night.

Some of you may wonder why we choose to do a meatless night each week...

Even though we are only one family, we recognize that reducing our meat consumption reduces our carbon footprint. It is estimated that the meat industry accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than transportation... it also cuts fossil fuel consumption and water consumption... while us, alone, can't really make a dent, if more and more families implement just one meatless night (or whole day) a week, imagine what a difference it would make, worldwide!

In addition, it reduces our red meat consumption, fatty meat consumption, etc... the health benefits alone will be good for our family.

Tonight, we chose Cauliflower Crust Pizza, which I found on Eat.Drink.Smile. (photo credit goes to them, tonight) thanks to Pinterest.

I'd like to point out just how much I've come to enjoy the Pinterest website. Granted, I don't get much out of the constant pictures of fingernail paint colors, purses, or pictures of dudes in boxer briefs, I do find lots of good ideas for the kitchen.

Let me start by saying that Cauliflower Crust Pizza is a sort of work in progress, I think... Ricing cauliflower is the easy part. The cheese caused the crust to stick (A LOT), which I found irritating. In fact, in classic Joey fashion, my plate ended up a pile of two pieces of the pizza, and didn't look all that appetizing, which is what I get for getting irritable. The recipe suggested cooking the toppings first, which you certainly should. Even with broiling the pizza (Erin suggested against cooking the toppings, because of the broil) the onions and mushrooms still seemed mostly raw (we used onions, baby bella mushrooms and tomatoes).

Erin reports that she really enjoyed it, and Madison ate almost an entire piece (she really liked the crust and cheese), which is excellent. The entire pizza was about 600 calories, and a head of cauliflower makes three pizzas. We made two pizzas, and ate every bit of it. This was not my favorite meal, but it was good, and I've learned a few tips for next time. I think it would have been delicious with peperoni, but that would defeat the purpose of being meatless. Also, I will point out that I'm full from my four pieces.

If you decide, yourself, to try this pizza, please let me know. I'm curious what other people think about it. Until next time...