Trial This Week

This week I tried the combination from www.cooks.com (No promises of low-calorie but hope it is good for health food)

We have :
Soup This Week: Low calorie cream of vegetable soup
Appetizer : Party Punch with Microwave Garlic Bread
Main Course : Italian Style Cauliflower served with mashed potatoes and red-wine.
Dessert : Apple Smack


Soup this week :

LOW-CALORIE "CREAM" OF VEGETABLE SOUP

Create your own delicious "cream" soup with your favorite vegetables and skim milk instead of cream. To keep calories, fat, and cholesterol low, use 2 cups defatted chicken broth or use 2 chicken bouillon cubes and 2 cup water. Add 3 cups of cut up vegetables of your choice, 1 cup cooked rice (omit if using potatoes), and 2 cups skim milk.

In a 3 quart saucepan over high heat, bring broth and prepared vegetables to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until vegetables are tender. Spoon half of mixture in blender and blend at low speed until smooth. Pour mixture into a bowl and continue until all vegetables are pureed in the broth they were cooked in. Return pureed mixture to saucepan. Stir in milk and heat through to serving temperature. Do not boil. Yield: approximately 6 servings.

Appetizer:

PARTY PUNCH

1 pint lime sherbet
1 quart lime/grapefruit beverage
1 pint milk

Add half of the sherbet to cold milk and beat well. Stir in the lime/grapefruit beverage.

Spoon the remaining sherbet onto the top and serve over cracked ice.

Makes 7 8oz servings.

MICROWAVE GARLIC BREAD

1 loaf French bread
3/4 c. butter
3 tbsp. Parmesan cheese
2 tsp. garlic powder

Slice bread but not all the way through the bottom. Place butter in measuring cup and microwave on low until softened. Stir in cheese and garlic powder. Spread both sides of bread slices. Wrap in waxed paper and place in brown paper bag. Tie bag with string and microwave on high for 1 to 2 minutes. Serve warm.

Main Course :

CAULIFLOWER ITALIAN STYLE

1 large head cauliflower, core removed
3/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 small onion, finely minced (or 1 shallot)
1 1/4 cups extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon each oregano and basil
1 green pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon red hot pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or to taste)
2-3 grinds coarse black pepper

Wash and remove core from cauliflower. Separate pieces from stem and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, bring vinegar, garlic, onion, red pepper flakes and green pepper to a boil. Immediately add cauliflower pieces. Cover. Simmer for two minutes or until cauliflower is just barely fork tender but still firm.

Remove pan from heat, leave covered and allow to sit 10 minutes.

Remove cauliflower to a serving bowl and dress with olive oil, basil and oregano. Add as little or as much of the hot vinegar mixture the cauliflower was cooked in as desired; a little if you prefer it mild, or use it all for full flavor (an acquired taste!)

Save any leftover to use as a marinade.

Dessert :

APPLE SMACKES

Served warm or cold. It's always a favorite.

4 apples, sliced
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. water
3/4 c. rolled oats
1/3 c. flour
1/4 c. wheat germ (if desired)
1/4 c. butter
2 tbsp. honey (if desired)
1 tsp. cinnamon

Lay apple slices in greased 8-inch square pan. Combine remaining ingredients and sprinkle over apples. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Spoon into small dishes and top with yogurt (if desired). Makes 4 servings.

Food Discussion

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Alternative food

Check out what alternative food can you eat ?
Remember you can eat almost anything as long as you take care of total calorie intake :)

These low-calorie alternatives provide new ideas for old favorites. When making a food choice, remember to consider vitamins and minerals. Some foods provide most of their calories from sugar and fat but give you few, if any, vitamins and minerals.

This guide is not meant to be an exhaustive list. We stress reading labels to find out just how many calories are in the specific products you decide to buy.

Full text at

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/lose_wt/lcal_fat.htm


Chart re-drawn at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgddhcmz_2g5wfdt

Snacks below 100 cal :)

I got some interesting information from internet on snacks under 100 cal. Check out full text at

http://nd.essortment.com/snackslowcalor_ruts.htm

Low calorie snack ideas under 100

Low calorie snacks under 100 calories - terrific for anyone watching their weight. All are healthy ways to stay on a diet without feeling deprived.

There's nothing worse to sink your diet than feeling deprived. Going out to lunch with friends and watching them devour all kinds of goodies while you sit and watch or watching TV and seeing tempting commercials of creamy, fatty indulgent convenience foods every seven and a half minutes. Where's the justice?

But creamy, sweet and 'fat-like' can be imitated with the right combinations of low-cal and non-fat or fat-free foods. Sometimes just a little taste is enough to get you over the dieting deprivation hump and keep your weight loss goal on track. Keep your taste combinations interesting.

Try these ideas to keep your snacking at 100 calories and under:

1 - 1/2 cup of sugar-free gelatin, any flavor, and two Tablespoons of low-fat Cool Whip.

2 - 15 chocolate-covered raisins.

3 - Stir 2 teaspoons of Hershey's chocolate syrup into a cup of coffee for Café Mocha.

4 - Tea - Russian style: Stir in 2 teaspoons of strawberry jam.

5 - 1/4 cup of fat-free Ranch dressing and 1 cup of mixed fresh veggies such as jicama, red bell pepper, celery, carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes.

6 - 6 saltine crackers and 2 teaspoons of peanut butter.

7- 1/2 cup of fat free ice cream.

8 - A luscious parfait: 1/2 c. of low-fat pudding layered into a parfait glass alternating with two crumbled vanilla wafers and a dollop of Cool Whip gracing the top.

9 - A wonderfully filling half sandwich made of 1 slice reduced-calorie bread, a thin layer of mustard, 2 teaspoons of apple sauce and 1 slice of deli-style thin-sliced turkey. Add lettuce and voila!

10 - Try another sandwich idea: 1 slice of reduced-calorie bread, 1/2 Tablespoon of peanut butter and 1 Tablespoon of fat-free raspberry vinegarette dressing.

11 - Over a small baked potato, spoon 1/2 cup of salsa and 2 Tablespoons of non-fat sour cream.

12 - I really like this one: one rice cake thinly spread with fat-free sour cream and sprinkled with 1 Tablespoon of crumbled blue cheese.

13 - Place a marshmallow on top of a graham cracker and microwave until gooey. Drizzle with a teaspoon of Hershey's chocolate syrup.

14 - Cut half an apple into slices and spread with 2 teaspoons of peanut butter.

15 - 1/2 cup of applesauce and 1 piece of toast cut into four sticks for dunking.

16 - Freeze 1/2 cup of orange juice and eat with a spoon. Nice little sorbet!

17 - 2 graham cracker squares each spread with 1 teaspoon of peanut butter.

18 - an 8 oz. low-fat yogurt or a small container of low-fat pudding.

19 - 1 slice of reduced calorie bread spread with 1/4 cup low-fat cottage cheese mixed with 2 Tablespoons of applesauce and sprinkled with cinnamon. Especially good warmed in the microwave.

20 - a cup of coffee and a small biscotti.

Experiment with flavors and you'll be amazed with the combinations you can come up with totaling under 100 calories. Some are very ordinary but it's the ordinary things that can make you feel deprived when you think you can't have them. So go ahead and indulge -- you're doing fine.

Lets Burn first

As important it is to intake calories, it is equally important to utilize them. However we most of the time are unaware which excercise can help us in utilizing more calories. Here is an interesting chart at following link to know how can we burn calories alongwith having fun.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgddhcmz_1f3kk7g

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Low Calorie Cooking

Resource : http://www.indianfoodforever.com/food-guide/low-calorie-cooking.html

It is important to have a set of non-stick pans to cook various dishes. You would require a very small kadhai or wok for tempering, a larger wok, a shallow frying pan and perhaps a deep saucepan for curried dishes. (Remember non-stick pans are generally not put on high heat, as they are thinner and heat faster.) A pressure cooker is essential to cook food fast and preserve vitamins.

For instance, instead of frying foods, you can dry roast or braise them. When tempering dals/beans you can either dry roast the tempering ingredients or use upto 1 tsp. oil to stir-fry them. Similarly, while making curries, onions may be braised - just add a sprinkling of water or stock to lightly brown them, or cook them in a microwave oven, or even boil them to prevent a raw onion taste in the dish. Alternatively, onions can be fried using very little oil in a non-stick pan. If you do not use onions in your cooking and are following recipes that use them, try tomato puree or roasted plain flour to thicken curries and gravies. Coconut should not be used because it is high in saturated fats. So are items like nuts, malai, cream, poppy seeds etc.

To turn a high-calorie dish into a low-calorie one just requires you to think differently. Usually dalis boiled and then tempered (vaghar, tadka, etc) with fried spices. Instead of doing this, add your onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic (whatever you generally use) to the dal when you are about to boil it. Then the tempering can be made with very little oil, whether it is jeera, rai or even just red chilli powder.

All kinds of koftas, which are fried, can be baked instead. Either you can bake the item in a pan and, when done, cut it into squares and put the curry on top or you can make roundels of the mixture, put them on a baking sheet or tray and bake.

The microwave oven also makes for easier fatless cooking in many cases. Some dishes are more conveniently cooked in a microwave. In addition, of course you can make dishes in larger quantity and freeze them for later use (if you have a deep freezer). These can then be thawed and reheated in the microwave oven.

There are some products available in the West that can help you reduce the fat in your food. For instance, a cooking spray is handy for baked dishes and dry cooked dishes. Non-fat milk, fat and sugar free foods, low-cal margarines, egg substitute and other diet specific foods may add variety to the diet.

Try and use skim milk if you don't like the taste of reconstituted powdered skim milk. Heat whichever milk you get (cow's milk has less fat content than standard or whole milk) and refrigerate it for 24 hours. Remove the malai from the surface, strain the rest of the milk and use. Curd, too, should be made from this milk. If you find the curd is on the thin side, thicken the milk with some skim milk powder.

When making sweet dishes, use artificial sweetener wherever possible. Or use part sugar and part sweetener. You can use the product you are familiar with, saccharin, aspartame, either liquid or tablets. In any case, it is better for health to avoid sweets: substitute with lots of fresh fruit which are healthier and lower in calories than say for instance halwa, ice-cream or other high calorie desserts.

Remember the greater the variety of food you eat, the more balanced a mix you will get and the healthier you will be as well.

We have many low-cal recipes for you to try. Happy dieting!

This information is provided for theraputic purposes. Consult your physician about the applicability of opinions or recommendations with respect to your diet and health condition.