FOODIE FRIDAY -- Edamame Succotash

I don’t know about you, but I was never a big fan of succotash. For those of you lucky slobs who have never had the pleasure of eating it, succotash is usually a mixture of lima beans and corn. Corn, I like. Lima beans, not so much. They taste like I would imagine a teenager’s gym locker would smell like. The texture isn’t much more pleasant with the slimy little kidney-shaped beans that have a gnarly grainy texture with zero flavor.

This explains why I don’t eat succotash . . . until I found this recipe.

I don’t know where I found this recipe, but since I feel like it’s a winner then it must be a Bon Appetit recipe. But then again, when you add bacon to anything--it’s a winner of a recipe.

The only difficult part of this recipe is shelling the edamame. In the long run, this recipe is worth the soggy fingers.

Edamame Succotash

2 Tbls. toasted sesame oil

½ cup finely diced red onion
1 tsp. minced garlic
2 thick strips applewood-smoked bacon, finely chopped (1/3 cup)
1 cup frozen edamame, thawed
½ cup fresh corn kernals (frozen works well)
¼ cup small diced red bell pepper (I don’t use)
Kosher salt and white pepper

In large skillet, heat the sesame oil over medium heat. Saute the onion and garlic until softened, about 2 minutes. Add the bacon and cook until it has rendered its fat and begins to crisp, about 5 minutes.

Add the edamame, corn and bell pepper and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Season with ½ tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp white pepper. Remove from heat and serve hot.

 Enjoy, Peeps!

FOODIE FRIDAY -- Taco Soup

This recipe has been in my files for many, many years. I think I picked it up during one of my previous Weight Watcher experiences. Trust me -- the current vision is the BEST version! Originally, it was one WW point per cup, but the calculations were different back then. Now, the points value (after I built the recipe in their program) is roughly 3 points per cup. Personally, I’d err on the heavier side of three and call it 4 points. Once the beef and onions are cooked, the rest of the ingredients are simply dumped in the pan. Easy-Peasy.

Uh, no my kiddo does NOT endorse this soup. I don’t know why, considering she will eat Hot Wings with the HOT HOT sauce on them. But who can fathom the minds of kiddos?

**Yes, this recipe freezes well **

Taco Soup

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 large onion, chopped
3 16-oz. cans Chili beans, undrained
16-oz can whole corn, undrained
16-oz can chopped tomatoes, undrained
15-oz can tomato sauce
1 ½ cups water
1 pkg. taco seasoning
1 pkg. Hidden Valley Ranch dry salad dressing mix

Cook beef and onion until beef is browned; drain. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 15-30 minutes.

Enjoy!

 

FOODIE FRIDAY -- Savory Stew with Dumplings

A long time ago (sometime after college), I picked up a Gold Medal flour cookbook. This is a wonderful go-to book for almost any type of recipe that would use flour. This is an easy comfort food type of stew and one of my fall back recipes for winter.  

Savory Stew with Dumplings

½ cup flour

2 to 3 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch chunks (or smaller)
3 Tbls oil
4 cups water
1 bay leaf
2 Tbls snipped parsley
½ tsp thyme
1 ½ cups ¼-inch slices carrots
1 cup ¼-inch slices celery
2 medium onions, sliced
4 cups ¾-inch cubed, unpared potatoes

Herb Dumplings (see below)

Mix flour, salt and pepper. Coat beef with flour mixture. Heat oil in Dutch oven until hot; add beef and remaining flour mixture. Cook and stir until beef is brown. Add water. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 1 ½ hours. Add bay leaf, parsley, thyme and vegetables. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.

Prepare Herb Dumplings. Drop by spoonfuls onto hot beef or vegetables (do not drop directly into liquid). Cook uncovered over low heat 10 minutes. Cover and cook 10 minutes longer.

Herb Dumplings

3 Tbls shortening

1 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp dried sage
¼ tsp dried thyme
¾ cup milk

Cut shortening into flour, baking powder, salt, sage and thyme until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in milk.

Enjoy!! 

FOODIE FRIDAY-- Chicken Noodle Soup

Last week, I picked up a rotisserie chicken. Most of them are pretty inexpensive, costing around five-six dollars. This is an awesome way to save time on those busy school nights.  Pop the chicken into the microwave, make a salad and a veg, and there’s dinner.

This time, I stripped the meat from the bones, placing the bones in a pan with water, a couple sprigs of rosemary, a small bunch of thyme, a bay leaf, about 2 tsp. peppercorns, one quartered onion, one coarsely chopped carrot and two coarsely chopped stalks of celery.  I cooked this down for about 30 minutes. I added a little salt AFTER it cooked down. Many times the rub on the chicken contains salt, and I didn’t want to over salt the broth. I strained out the solid stuff and adjusted the flavor with herbs and a little salt. Then the broth went into a container and into the fridge. The next day, I spooned off the fat and used the broth in this soup.

Sorry, most of this I didn’t measure. Just adjust according to your family’s tastes.

Chicken Noodle Soup

1 onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, sliced lengthwise and chopped
2 carrots, chopped
Olive oil
Chopped chicken @ 2 cups
Chicken broth @ 8-10 cups
Parsley
Sage
Rosemary
Thyme
1 pkg. Reames frozen noodles, 16 oz.
Salt and pepper if desired

Add 1-2 Tbls. oil to hot pan. Saute celery, carrots and onion until slightly softened. Add chicken. Add broth and heat until boiling. Check seasonings, adjust as needed. Lower heat to a simmer. Add frozen noodles and cook until noodles are tender, about 20 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

This is just the comfort food for those cold nights.

Later, Peeps!

 

Foodie Friday--Chili

I don’t know about where y’all live, but after our scorching hot summer, I’m glad that the air has gotten a little cooler.

But I have a love/hate relationship with winter. It’s colder out, so we tend to stay inside snuggled up with a good book, watching television or simply crocheting, which means we have to make an effort to exercise. Winter also implies comfort food: soups, stews, chilis, pastas, etc. And with that sort of comfort food comes the weight gain.

And none of us want to gain back the weight we have lost, do we?

So, I’ll share my comfort food recipes with you only if you promise to remember portion control and to keep exercising this winter. I know I’ll be walking daily--probably in the afternoons instead of early mornings--unless the weather is so bad that it is detrimental to my health (ice, snow, storms, bitterly cold wind chills). It’s been known to happen, but I have a portable stair climber . . . and a set of normal stairs I could go up and down, up and down, etc., a Wii, and a pesky gym membership that I haven’t used in almost a year.

Anyhoo, here’s my take on a chili recipe. I happened to have a pound of smoked brisket in the freezer, so I tossed it into the mix and decreased the ground beef to @ 2 lbs. The kidlet and I liked the added smokiness, the hubster not so much. Everything is to your personal taste and heat tolerance.

Margaret’s Chili

2 Tbls. olive oil

1 ½ cups chopped onions (2 small)

8 large garlic cloves, smashed and minced

3 lbs ground beef (substitute 1 lb of smoked chopped brisket for 1 lb. ground beef)  

5-6 heaping Tbls. chili powder

1 Tbls. ground cumin

1 tsp. dried basil

½ tsp. dried oregano

½ tsp. dried thyme

2 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, puree slightly with hand blender

2 cups beef broth

1 12-ounce bottle beer (I used Corona)

1 6-ounce can tomato paste

1 15-ounce can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed

Salt (@ 1 Tbls.) to taste (under season chili until it cooks down, then adjust)

Pepper (@ ½ tsp) 

Heat oil in large heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onions, sautéing for @ 4 minutes, then add garlic. Saute until onions translucent, @ 4 more minutes. Add meat and sauté until brown, breaking up meat with spoon, @ 5 minutes. Add chili powder, cumin, basil, oregano, and thyme. Stir 2 minutes. Mix in pureed tomatoes, broth, beer and tomato paste. Add salt and pepper (UNDER SEASON MIXTURE AT THIS POINT). Simmer until thickened to desired consistency, stirring occasionally, @ 1-1 ½ hours. Mix in beans. Simmer 5 minutes. Adjust seasoning.  

Enjoy!

Later, Peeps!!

Weighty Wednesday--Autumn is in the Air!

I weighed at my Weight Watcher's meeting on Monday. Since I started Weight Watchers and walking on June 19th, I've lost 26.8 pounds. THAT DESERVES A 'WOOHOO'! I still have a lot to lose, but I'm on the downhill slide now, which makes me very happy.

Anyway this time of the year makes me think of many things, both good and bad in relation to weight loss. Here's my list:

Brisk mornings--LOVE THEM! Seriously, what's not to love? The mornings are cool and the temperature is in the 60's. I found that when I'm walking, I tend to enjoy it more and slow down, which in turn forces me to kick it up a notch, since I'm walking for exercise and not just enjoyment. Enjoyment is a side effect of the walk. As long as I get sweaty by the end of the walk, then I've done enough.

We had quite a bit of rain over the weekend, so the ragweed pollen count was down a little, which helps. I also ran across some raccoon tracks as the little dude stepped in some mud before he tracked his way up a cement embankment. Too cute!

Horseback riding--I've always said that I love riding when it's cold, but sunny. Which makes sunny anytime in the autumn totally awesome! This old body is seriously out of riding shape, so one ride involving 20+ minutes of posting took me out of commission for 5 days--yes, FIVE. My poor little pudgy thighs are so out of shape! But I'll try to ride 1 or 2 times a week as my schedule allows. It will get easier the quicker I get into riding shape. I love the smell of horses. Either you love it or you hate it, there is no inbetween!

Comfort food--As the season starts to get cooler around here, we stop grilling outside. This scares me, since I tend to put on weight in winter--like so many others. I'm starting to think about all the comfort foods that I like to eat: virtually any pasta dish, chilies, stews, meatloaf, etc. So I need to rethink how those goodies are cooked and lean them up.
If I can't lean them up, then it's all about portion control and the veg on the side. I love the variety of veg in the summer months and I'm not that familiar with winter veg. But a leaner me will mean that I need to rework my normal recipes into something else. And if y'all really know me, you know that I love a challenge!

Halloween candy--This is the beginning of CANDY SEASON. 6-7 months of candy and desserts. Halloween candy leads into Thanksgiving dessert making, that evolves into Christmas candy making season into Christmas stocking candy, to Valentine's day candy to the Easter eggstravaganza! Whew! I am a sugar fiend! And I need to find some way to take control of my uncontrollable nibbling.
I think I found a solution . . . for now. I bought a bag of Halloween candy (Autumn mixture) and weighed one serving size (41 grams), placed it in a small baggie, calculated the WW points value (4) and FROZE the baggies. If I have a craving, I can dig into the freezer bag of nummies and slowly nibble on it. I'll take the sugar hit along with the points hit. No, there is no redeeming quality about candy, but sometimes you just have to have something sugarlicious.

On a side note: My WW leader had me show my candy baggie to the group. And most of them were appalled. I don't know whether it was from the fact that I bought a bag of candy and weighed out 41 grams 14 times, or if it was because they were 4 points per baggy.
One older lady even wagged her finger at me and told me not to each sugar. Yes, I'm 50 and this older lady 60-70ish still tried to treat me like a kid. *sigh* I calmly pointed out that WW was all about eating healthy while managing real life issues/cravings. Having the baggy of candy is one way I would manage it. I'll take a 4 point hit over trolling for food, which can lead to serious overeating (which I did one afternoon last week to the tune of 19 points!) Cutting out candy isn't the way to fix the problem. Admitting you need a sugar hit periodically and being ready with an alternative is.

I've lost almost 27 lbs so far--I think my way is working for ME.

REMEMBER: THE KEY IS MODERATION NOT DEPRIVATION.

Again, weight loss comes down to knowing what your triggers are, and learning to adapt and readjust your way of thinking. What works for me might not work for you, but I'll share what works, because I might be able to help someone out there.

Later, Peeps!