Tasty Bite

Hello my eager beavers,

I was reflecting on my previous blog and thinking about the main staples that I rely on during the week (as opposed to my care free food adventures on the weekend).  There is a brand of prepared entrees by a company called "TastyBite". Everything comes in a pouch, is microwaveable, vegetarian, gluten-free, kosher and all natural. If you love Indian or pan-Asian style food. These are super easy to keep around the house. I usually pair them up with rice or a baked potato. They have traditional dishes like Bombay potatoes, madras lentils, jodhpur lentils, Kashmir spinach,, spinach Dal, Punjab eggplant, Agra peas and greens, aloo palak, Bangkok beans, Bengal lentils, Channa masala, kerela vegetables, tofu corn masala....there are really too many to name. What I like the most is how the nutrition information is on the package so I can use my Points Plus calculator to figure out the value and work it into my plan. Ive seen points plus values on these products, ranging from 3 to 9 points plus per serving. There are two servings per package.I tend to stay away from the items with cream and lean towards ones that are higher in fiber as they tend to have lower values. One of my personal favorites is the Jodhpur lentils. They're 3 points plus per serving. 5 for the whole package.

I was surprised when I went to the tastybite website http://www.tastybite.com/ and saw all of the recipe idea using there entrees, which are great on their own to create all new dishes.

For those that know me, I love all things lentils. I found a recipe for the a lentil and pumpkin soup that looks so easy.

Lentil and pumpkin soup (jodhpur lentils)

1 pack of jodhpur lentils

1 15oz can of pumpkin puree

1/2 diced vidalia onion

1 cup skim milk.

salt

1 tsp sugar (use splenda if you're watching your sugar intake- shaves a point off the value)

1/4 tsp crushed garlic (optional)

1 tsp butter

serves 4

3points plus value per serving

Melt the butter and saute the onions and garlic until tender. Add the pumpkin and 1/cup of water. Add the lentils, milk, salt and sugar. mix well and heat through and serve. (the serving...that's the best part lol)

This looks super easy and since I eat these lentils all the time, it's the perfect thing to add a little variety to my week. I will definitely post an update and let you know how this came out.  I hope you're inspired to check out there site and do a little experimenting just as I am.

Ok bees and bears....I'm off for now!

:)

Back to the grind

Hello peeps,

Its Monday after the storm. I'm back on track with my dieting. (I hope lol).I try to the best of my ability to follow the Weight watchers points plus plan, but being a foodie,it gets boring sometimes. I like to try different foods and to the best of my ability fit them into the plan. I'm not always successful, but you got to give me an "E" for effort. I hate to sound like a cliche "whats for dinner tonight" blog...but that's exactly what I'm going to write about. lol.

Tonight I will be making a very points plus friendly fried rice. Its probably one of my favorite  meals during the week. Its easy and satisfying. If i went on food adventures and tasted 50 things every day, I'd be 300 pounds. I like to keep a clean diet during the week and be a little more adventurous on the weekends when I have the points to spare.  So this is how I make an easy "fried" rice with leftover rice from other meals during the week. I hope your inspired and try it and leave me a comment to let me know how you like it. The thing I like most about this dish, is that its very flexible in regard to what veggies you can put in it. You can use whatever is in your fridge or freezer.

Easy "fried" rice

1 cup of leftover rice (white or brown, depending on preference)

3 egg whites

1/2 cup steamed broccoli

1/2 cup onions, diced

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup corn kernels (optional- corn adds points so if you're cheap with your points leave it out)

1/4 carrots, sliced

1/2 a chopped scallion

(you can add any veggie you like if you want to really bulk it up)

2 cloves crushed garlic

salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste

1 teaspoon olive oil

Soy sauce to taste

I spray my pan with fat free cooking spray and then add the olive oil. I find one teaspoon of olive oil isn't enough to saute so that's why I use both spray and oil. When the pan is hot I add my onions and cook until translucent. I add my garlic and cook for 3 minutes. Make sure not to burn your garlic, it will taste bitter.

I add my other veggies and scallions, except the tomatoes. Add those at the end so they don't get too over cooked. I saute everything together and add my salt, pepper and garlic powder. When my veggies are tender I add the rice. You might have to give it an extra spray of cooking spray if the pan needs it at this point. when my veggies and rice are combined, I pour my egg whites in and cover it for about 5 minutes or until its set. When It's set, scramble the hell out of it (that's a fancy cooking technique ya know). I add my tomatoes and soy sauce and let it cook for another minute. The whole thing is huge and  8 points. You  can divide it in half and have two 4pointsplus servings.

Okay honey bees and honey bears...Time to actually start work.

Off for now!

TaTa!  :)

Some serious cabin fever

Hello my lovelies,

It's been one boring weekend. So you all get to read me twice in one day. How lucky for you;)  I have the information about the banana cake from my previous post. I got it from a blog called the undercover cook. So if you're interested in making that cake you can google her. I never read the inserts in the sunday paper. I actually never read the paper at all lol.  It was on my table today and i saw a recipe that I grabbed for my mother. It's totally right up her alley.  It's for a summer fruit and sweet cream cheese galette. It seems very easy. Here it is.

1 package(8ounces) softened cream cheese
1/2 cup confectioners suger
3 tbs cornstarch, divided
1 whole egg, seperated
2 tbs sugar, plus a little extra for sprinkiling
1 tsp vanilla
1 refridgerated pie crust from a 14.1-ounce box
2 cupss fruit(pick one or mix thinly sliced plums, peaches or aprcots; or mixed berries

Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix cream cheese, confectioners sugar. 2tbs cornstarch and the egg yolk in a bowl. In a seperate bowl mix fruit, 2tbs of sugar,remaining tbs of cornstarch and vanilla exthract. Unfurl pie dough on a lightly floured surface and roll to about 13 inches in diameter. Slide on to a cookie sheet or pizza pan and spread with the cream cheese mixture leaving a 2 inch border. Scatter the fruit over the cream cheese mixture and fold the pastry border over the fruit. Brush dough perimeter with egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until golden brown and bubbly. About 30 minutes. Loosen with a metal spatula and slide to a wire rack to cool..serve warm and enjoy!

I sooooo look forward to making this next weekend!  Will keep you all posted on the deliscious outcome. By for now honeybees and honey bears!
:)

the best banana bread turned layer cake ever!

Hello peeps..
well we just had one mother of a storm...and you know what that means. Time for me to cook my ass off. Anywhoo..this post should have been called "How I ate my way through WholeFoods", but i dont eat meat so it would be impossible to eat my way through, but I'm damm sure going to give it the good ol' college try.  Before I get to the banana bread cake, i want to tell you about my dinner the last time i eate at WF. It all started with a tofu tower. I suppose it's their riff on a caprese salad which they veganized by leaving out the mozzerella. The presentation was pretty in that they stacked the tofu with tomatoes and alternating basil leave, however I feel its a culinary criminal act when one has the blank tofu canvas staring up at them and they do nothing with it. i forgot to grab some kind of dressing because it didnt look like it needed any. So out came the salt. Need I say more. the ultimate insult  is to reach for the salt. So I moved forward to the chimichurri tofu. looked a little more promising. Tofu swimming in a sea of green herby-ness. (yes i make up words).
And again, needed salt. im beginning to see a pattern with certain dishes. its almost as if they are afraid to salt the food. i mean salt is a natural mineral people. Pick it up people and use it. A little salt and pepper goes a long way. So just when Ive lost all hope of finding any flavor, i move on to the two things that i know are going to be good. Now check this out I'm not talking gourmet here..Im a regular vegetarian chic who wants a good samosa every now and then. I'm not hard to please. The samosas at WF are very spicy...so be prepared to perspire..they are probably one of my favorate things at their hot salad bar in addition to the koftas. which are spicy as well both items are a little on the dry side and definately need a sauce to go with it. But im not put off by eating them without a sauce.
So after my samosa..onto my cake. now i know it seems that ive eaten alot but mind you the beauty of eating at WF is being able to take a small spoon of something ive ner tried before. I hate having to commit to a whole dish of something only to find out it  sucks. ...ok now onto the cake..lol..and who doesnt love cake. I usually get this natural chocolate cake that is made with raisins and dates and cocoa and applesauce. Its a little bit healthier than a traditional chocolate cake. but I was feeling a little dangerous this one particular evening and decided to indulge in the chocolate ganache cake. Holy moly. Was I surprized at the layer of ganache on this cake. it was so thick and the cake was so dense. When i took a bite it was almost as if my mouth was trying to move through quicksand lol. If youre one for a light cake with a light frosting pass on this one...but if dense and rich is your bag then go and indulge with an espresso on the side. you most definately need to have a strong coffee with this cake.
Speaking of cake. The subject of this post was about banana cake. which was my project a few days ago as i let 6 bananas over-ripen on my kitchen table. I could not find my banana cake recipe so i took one off the internet  (cant remember where i got it, but will definately look and post the info when i get home). Anywhoo..im a fan of any cake that calls for either buttermilk or sour cream. i just find they tend to have a nice texture thats dense but not too dense. This is basically a banana bread recipe in the form of a cake. Im not sure if i like this one better than my other recipe..but I did something different with the frosting this time. I used a buttercream frosting in between the two layers .I attempted to put the frosting on top but I made a real rookie mistake. As soon as I started frosting this cake the frosting started to melt and my heart sank. Disgusting. So i scraped it off as fast as i could. I know better than to frost a warm cake. in fact i always frost the next day just to be safe. So I was totally kicking myself. Things happen for a reason..and my due to hurricane Irene taking down the transportation, my commitment was cancelled. So in the fridge this banana beauty went. The plan is to frost the outside with a cream cheese frosting. Other things to note on this recipe. I used a 9x13 round pan and poured all the batter into it. This recipe called for 3 cups of flour...so you know along with the other ingredients this is one big mother of a cake. It was a slow bake cake at 275degrees. the recipe said it would take an hour in a 9x13 rectangular pan. In the round it toom an hour and 15 minutes. Next time I will definately split the batter between two pans. it was in the oven forever and I had to trim the top off in a few spots because I was afraid it wasnt cooked all the way through. Anyway, my banana beauty is in the freezer awaiting her debut next weekend. Will be taking her out the day before and frosting her.
On that frosty note honeybees and honey bears...i must get going
Until next time!

forget chicken soup for the soul-lentil soup for my belly!

Hey everyone..

last week I went to the Chelsea market.  It totally runs a close second to the holiday market at union square which is only during Christmas season.  I went into this Italian store that upon first glance did not appear to be very impressive..however upon closer inspection, turned out to be quite the little store with all kinds of hidden treasures. I bought three things. Sun dried cherry tomatoes, honey, and french lentils(the small green ones). i actually thought i was buying the black lentils but when i got them home, turns out i made a mistake. Its ok.. I never met a lentil I didn't like.

I left the store and found a spot to sit.  I opened up the sun dried to tomatoes and tried one. I was surprised at how salty they were. To me the regular sun dried tomatoes have a concentrated tomato flavor..but not salty at all. So i was very surprised at the saltiness of the sun dried cherry tomatoes.  I had very high hopes for the honey, only to be disappointed with the overwhelming taste of lavender assaulting my palette. Maybe my taste buds aren't evolved enough to appreciate the 7 dollar honey from Italy. I think i will stick to my Golden Blossom honey from now on. Anyway, it was my mission to help these lentils fulfill their lentil destiny. I never follow a recipe for a soup. So it always  comes out different every time. I'm totally ok with rockin' that way. Life's too short to worry about food being the same every time. Plus it gives me an opportunity to try new things.

I'm a fan of the slow cooker. Never met one I didn't like. I was a little disappointed to find that I accidentally threw out my garlic last week, I was still on a lentil mission regardless. I used the inside of the celery, where all those leaves are. That's where I find to get the most celery flavor. I used a hand full of baby carrots and an onion. I must have had bechemel in my brain because I took an onion and cut it into quarters and stuck cloves in each piece. That's a common way to make bechamel sauce. with a clove studded onion. So that's what I put in my slow cooker for my soup. I honestly don't know where i made the connection to do that, especially since I'm not so much a fan of cloves...but I had no garlic and this soup was going to need some thing to help it along.

Anywhooo,,,I added my lentils and some salt and pepper, covered them with water and forgot about it. Until the next morning my house was smelling quite soupy. If you decide to make this soup, don't be put off by what you will find in the morning. I promise, it all comes together in the end. At the top of my slow cooker was all this dark liquid that had turned my onions a very unattractive shade of brown. Its ok because I'm not a fan of having big chunks of onions in my lentil soup, that's why I left them big so I could yank them out along with the celery. I put that stuff in more for flavor, All of the lentils were at the bottom of the pot. After I discarded all of my veggies, I gave my lentils a good stir. I tend to er on the side of caution with salt. You can always add more, but if you put too much you cant take it away. It definitely needed more salt and the clove flavor was quite strong. It was a little surprising to taste only cloves as the primary spice in my soup. I'm sure it could have benefited from some ginger. All in all I really like the soup because the texture of the lentils were very nice. I cant wait to go to the market again, get some more lentils and try this with some fresh ginger. I might also buy the red and yellow lentils as well.

Ok honeybees and honey bears...I'm off for now!

all things veggie

Hey everyone,

I haven't blogged in a while.. Sometimes life gets in the way....Its August. And you know what that means, It means that my favorite time of year is right around the corner. I  know I know, You're probably saying its way too early to get excited about the fall season. But that's not the case with me....oh how I can't wait for fall.

I haven't done much cooking lately. The other day i decided to make a veggie meatball and pasta dish. my recipe writing skills aren't the best so bear with me. I don't always follow an exact recipe so that is definitely something I will be working on in the future. I saw a recipe in "vegetarian times" for Greek veggie meatballs. It called for seitan, and mint and dill. I'm not a fan.  So I altered the recipe and stuck to the traditional Italian flavors that I feel meatballs are supposed to have. (minus the meat of course).

I bought this texturized vegetable protein (gimmelean brand) in ground beef style. I added ricotta cheese, Italian bread crumbs, two eggs, salt, pepper and garlic. It took a while for this to come together. The "meat" was hard to mix up. i added some water to loosen it up and eventually it all incorporated. I made my meatballs the size of golf balls and browned them in some canola oil. After they were nice and brown  I put them in a casserole dish with some of the tomato sauce I made and baked them off at 350 for 20 minutes.

The texture was that of a very soft meatball. Keep in mind I haven't had a real meatball in 15 years...so I was just going by my old memories. I wasn't exactly fond of the flavor and the texture. It was too smooth i think to mimic a real meatball. And it definitely could have benefited from some Parmesan cheese. I think next time I will use the sausage style gimmelean and add the parm. I think it might have a better flavor. When I get the recipe to where it has to be I will definitely post it. Ive been busy working on my cakes for Saturdays festivities ;)

I'm making a tres leches coconut cake,  strawberry kindergarten cake and a banana cake. I did a test run on Ree Drummonds "the best frosting i ever had" and I have to tell you It was the best frosting I ever had. lol.

It stares off with flour and milk...which I know sounds a bit odd....but there's a whole science to why this frosting works.lol...Ive actually seen this technique for frosting in quite a few blogs and books. I think its the first type of frosting that was originally on a Red Velvet cake. Then somewhere along the line someone decided to pair it with a cream cheese frosting. I'm a fan. in fact, Ive never met a frosting I didn't like. Ok honeybees and honeybears...I'm totally goofing off at work...so I must go. Will keep you posted on that "meat"ball recipe when i get it to where it needs to be

TaTa