Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash is very good and a low calorie substitute for pasta. It  can be sauced just the same as pasta. It is easy to cook and at 42 calories a cup vrey diet friendly.
Here is the rest of the nutritional data on spaghetti squash:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2655/2

To prepare:

Slice a squash in half. You will need a big heavy knife and some muscle power..they are hard on the exterior..I actually used a rubber mallet to get my knife through it today.

With a spoon scrape out the seeds. Then in a cast iron pan large enough or casserole grease lightly the pan and the cut surface with a small quantity of olive oil...just to keep it from sticking. Then place cut side down in the bottom of the pan and cover. Put into a pre-heated oven 350 degrees. It is done when the shell is pierced with a large cooking fork and the flesh is tender and soft. Using tongs or a fork take the squash from the pan..Holding with oven mitts you can then scrape out the strings of squash with a dinner fork into a bowl. I use a quarter of a small squash for a serving..about a cup and today made a simple tomato sauce which will appear in the next post.

Julia Child's Ratatouille Revised to Low Fat and Easier

I had a yen for Ratatouille and the best recipe to me has been by Julia Child and Simon Beck. Julia's recipe was for a half pound of eggplant and a half pound of zucchini. I doubled the recipe and offer some suggestions as to what would make it low fat/salt and still good.

the recipe is shown on the following site.

http://www.healthygreenkitchen.com/julia-childs-ratatouille.html

I have changed it by substituting good chopped canned Italian plum tomatoes..imported please from Italy..read the label carefully...Also
I have lowered the 6 or 7 tablespoons of olive oil to fit into the very low fat diet I am following by making the following recipe changes..

When salting the zucchini and eggplants I use a half teaspoon of sea salt instead of a whole teaspoon, scattered over and mixed in by hand. Instead of sauteeing the zucchini or eggplant I drizzle over a whole tablespoon of olive oil then mix to cover each piece well with my hands..then I put them into a flat pan big enough to only have one layer of veggies so they don't lie upon eachother and roast them in the oven at 450 degrees. I turn and carefully watch so they don't burn or brown too much..follow the level of color from the original recipe. Next I do the same with the onions and the peppers..again using only 1 Tablespoon of oil..I do not add the tomato ealy as in the recipe, rather I add it when you layer the casserole at the end as the tomatoes are already soft out of the can.

The results are quite similar in taste to the original however the veggies are not swimming in oil and therefor can be made for a very low fat diet. If you have no issues with using all the oil it is luxurious but I find it isnt necessary particularly if you have become habituated to using less oil in your cooking.

I serve it with brown rice or quinoa and a salad

Home Made Fat Free Ricotta Cheese

I have not found a smooth tasty fat free Ricotta Cheese. As I like to use it in my snacks and cooking I looked up a recipe by the famed Vegetarian Food expert, Deborah Madison. I have been following her recipes since the 80's. She wrote a book with Edward Espe Brown when she was working with him..called the Tassajara Recipe Book in 1985. It is a wonderful little book of recipes from the Zen Monastery at Tassajara who among other wonderful things ran the Green Gulch Gardens where Alice Waters originally sourced her vegetables for Chez Panise.

Her Ricotta recipe is ridiculously easy to do and a lot of fun to make. I took the recipe and used skim milk and found you could get an altogether acceptable product..far better than the commercially available fat free ricotta I rejected as grainy and unpleasant..name withheld!

I used the commercially produced skim milk but think the better quality the ingredients the better the outcome. Also I used a big porcelain lined cast iron stew pot which when I let the curds form I left in my microwave. Since the microwave is insulated and small it kept the curds warm perfectly. I used white vinegar and would imagine that using the other options would change the quality of the resulting product. finally I whipped a small amount in my mini prep to see what would happen. It resulted in a ricotta cream which I am sure to use instead of custard sauce once flavored. maybe I will play with a recipe she has for floating island dessert..more to come..

Deborah Madison's recipe can be found on the link to www.about.com shown below

http://homecooking.about.com/od/beefrecipes/r/bldairy48.htm

Happy New Year! Two Steps Forward One Step Back

The new diet I have been on has helped me to lose 13 pounds since the end of August. Unfortunately my recent test results show me as having higher than acceptable Cholesterol numbers. Since the diet I have been eating is a low fat diet it is not the diet doing this. For the last number of years I have been battling a genetic pre-dispositon to high cholesterol. Being a small size..6 or a big size 4 hasn't saved me from high cholesterol. My body is just manufacturing it..just like my 98 pound mom did!
So dear reader, in addition to my normally low fat offerings I will also be adding what I call Cholesterol lowering ideas and recipes. I've been reading new books by Dean Ornish and Harvard University as well as searching the internet. When I find information that I see more than once and from credible sources I am using them to re-invent what I eat. For instance I now take fish oil and ground flax seed..more on the plan later.

While I personally will be largely vegetarian to see whether I can naturally control my body's production of cholesterol or not, without drugs..you dear reader, will see a variety of options from vegetarian to not.

I still desire to eat what tastes great and while the veggie thing is going to be a real challenge for things being as easily and quickly prepared, I am doing my best to keep it easy and fun and delicious.
For those who are interested I will be posting various links to new information regarding cholesterol and what figures into the lowering of it.

Verjus an interesting alternative to wine

Here is a website dedicated to Napa Valley Verjus..unfermented wine.

There are many recipes and a discussion of what Verjus is and is used for. Some of the recipes would work well for dieting if sugar was replaced with Agave syrup and oils amounts lowered.

http://www.verjus.com

Food Meditation

Many years ago I took myself to the Miraval Spa. It's a wonderful spa and I had a number of mind altering experiences there. One of these was a class called a food meditation. Probably one of the most important spa classes I have ever taken.

We arrived in the dining room and met at a table with the nutritionist. She spoke to us about the fact that the body needs 20 minutes of attentive eating to register that it has eaten and instructed us to go to the breakfast bar and take whatever we wanted in whatever amounts we wanted. Not to be stingy with ourselves, but to load up on whatever we felt we wanted.

Then we were to come back to the table and silently eat for 20 minutes. No talking. No reading. No listening to music/tv. Just us and our food. After we would speak about the experience. We were to chew slowly really feeling and tasting the food in our mouths. Roll it around. Drink slowly again attending to the food. At first you feel foolish..but over the 20 minutes a personal awareness about self and food starts to emerge.

When we were finished we spoke of the meditation on our meals, for many of us a first. No one could finish what they had taken. All felt full with less than what they expected. The nutritionist explained that by focusing on what we were doing, really focusing,  our bodies could really have the full effect of the experience of eating.

I have found if I try to leave the newspaper, the tv..the talking aside and truly focus for twenty minutes it always results in my feeling more full, satisfied, relaxed and with less quantity. The effect of this meditation seems to last a while and then I notice myself sneaking the Times back to the table. Its a meditation that needs doing and re-doing to keep myself educated to its wisdom.

I encourage you to try a food meditation. It does world's to reset your understanding of you and food.

Leeks braised and sauteed, and as two fillings for omelettes

Braised Leeks are a classic in french cooking. They are very easy to prepare and like all members of the Alium family, Onion family, they are really good for you.

First you must choose and clean the leeks. I prefer my leeks on the smallish side as they are easier to cook and I think they taste better than the enormous ones. To clean them I follow Julia Child's advise which roughly goes like this.

Lay the leek on a cutting board. From the top of the white part to the end of the green part slice it through. Then roll it a half turn and again slice through.
 Holding it lengthwize parallel to the bottom of the sink basin clean by running water accross one of the cuts while opening gently the leaves..never hold upright against the flow of water or you will force the sand deeper into the leek. Then once the leek is clean where you cut it turn to the next cut and continue until you have cleaned all the areas you have cut. Sandy leeks are unpleasant so make sure you got all of it out.

Next, Cut off the root end and then cut off most of the green parts.

To braise the white part of the leek you need to first in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil brown the leek. Then add some broth..chicken or even vermouth or white wine to the pan and slowly poach turning until it is tender.

For the greens you can cut them into one inch pieces and saute them in a bit of olive oil for use in other preparations

I am suggesting two omelette fillings here using the sauteed leeks.

One is with the sauteed peppers from the 11/22/2010 posting along with a bit of Ricotta

The second omelette filling uses the sauteed leeks with some Coach Farms Lowered Fat Goats Cheese Chevre..and a bit of  salt and pepper.