Skinny Pineapple Cake

I’m glad to have this light dessert as part of my meal-ending rotation! I can’t recall ever having pineapple upside-down cake, but one of my friends swears by it. So when I saw a 2-ingredient pineapple cake recipe, from WW Recipes, I started thinking of ways to convert it to something like an upside-down cake to give it a little more flavor. Here’s the lowdown on my 4-ingredient cake:

• 1 box angel food cake mix
• 20-oz. can of crushed pineapple, in juice, undrained
• 12 maraschino cherries
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar-free caramel sauce (I used 1/4 cup, but I think 1/3 cup might cover the cake better next time.)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place the cake mix in a bowl. Add the pineapple; stir until the ingredients are well mixed and the batter is moistened. Pour into a 13 x 9 pan sprayed with cooking spray. Place the cake in the oven, baking to the typical package instructions.

When the top of the cake becomes golden and a little crusty, before the entire cake is completely set, add the 12 cherries to the top of the cake, gently pushing into the surface of the cake a little bit. Pour the caramel sauce on top of the cake, gently spreading around with a silicone spatula. (Looking back, though, it would definitely be easier to spread the caramel and then place the cherries.)

Place the cake back in the oven and continue baking until you can put a toothpick in the cake and have it come out clean.

Cool and cut into 12 slices.

Dessert: Chocolate Sandwich and Strawberry Chips

When you’re on Weight Watchers, sometimes you end up eating things that sound crazy on paper but really do taste good and cut corners on calories. One thing in this category for me is pairing half a light hot dog bun and 1 tablespoon of Nutella.

I always thought this was an odd combination, but it was the skinniest thing I could think of to go with the Nutella. I’ve been eating the half bun slathered with the Nutella, open face, with a tea to drink.

But then, with all of the pretty pictures I’ve been seeing on the Internet, and the lovely food I saw at Zahav recently, I decided to spruce this up a bit.

And this is what I came up with.

I call it a chocolate sandwich with strawberry “chips.” Cut the bun half in half and spread it with the Nutella. Rinse and hull the strawberries, then slice them and arrange them around the sandwich. Voila!

Savory Turkey Ham and Quinoa Salad

I started off intending to make this salad from Leite’s Culinaria (by way of the book The New American Olive Oil), but I worried that it wouldn’t taste the same without the sherry vinegar, so I worked around it. Here’s what I ended up doing:

The Artsy Meal

One thing I’ve noticed on my recent jaunts on Pinterest is that other people’s dishes look so beautiful! Vibrant bursts of color in a simple Israeli salad of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. The bold red of ripe strawberries that will never show the typical signs of decay, because they have been slow-baked into a delicious snack. The functional presentation of a pork and vegetable melange served in hollowed-out eggplant halves. I’m sure some of the artistry is for the composition of the photos, but it makes me look at my own drab winter plates with envy.

Yesterday, I reclaimed a bit of the art for myself, assembling a plate of leftovers from a function at work. Alongside the stuffed chicken breast half and meatball I had, I loaded up on grilled vegetables–large chunks of yellow and green zucchini and carrots, asparagus, and one of my favorites, grilled eggplant. The brightness of the vegetables were muted a bit by the stripes from their turn on the grill, but it was infinitely more aesthetically pleasing than dumping some steamed broccoli out of a microwaveable bag into a Tupperware container.

Seeing others’ meals, and having a few moments of Zen (word to Jon Stewart) looking at the salads I ate in January make me long for more times when I can stare at a plate with same intense admiration and awe that Matthew Broderick had when looking at the hanging picture in his recent Ferris Bueller-spoofing Superbowl ad.

Being able to behold the beauty of a meal also means not scarfing it down in five minutes flat. My day can hurtle along at warp speed sometimes; I think I need to find better ways to carve out some moments of solitude and focus just on the food. (Sorry, Big Bang Theory and HTC Amaze…)

Another idea I have, from a book that I haven’t finished yet, is to make the meal accoutrements more appealing as well. Marianne Williamson recommends in A Course in Weight Loss to pick out special flatware, plates and glasses for eating your meals, so the experience is more pleasant and memorable, and shows more respect for you meeting your daily nutrition needs, rather than just scarfing down something portable and moving on to putting out the next fire in your life. Others talk about consciously eating; this shoots for the same goal of allowing yourself to fully experience the food.

I tend to ignore doing these things a lot, but I think they would be helpful. This weekend, I think I’ll be envisioning my kitchen as an art studio!

Are you creative with food, or just eating whatever you can get your hands on to keep hunger at bay? If you put some thought into the aesthetics of your food, how do you go about doing that? Drop a line in the comments.

Things I Learned From a Month of Salads

My 2012 started off with me stocking up on lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions, red cabbage, peppers, and other kinds of raw vegetables to turn into salads. In the month of January, I embarked on a challenge to eat a salad a day.

I was sick and missed dinner on Day 7, and on Day 26, the realities of salad fatigue had set in. But after those two missed days, I ate two salads on the following days. So I eventually crossed the finish line into February, today, with 31 bowls of veggies and proteins having made their way through my body in the month before. Someone figure out how to turn a radish into a medal for me!

I am happy to have completed my challenge with minor hiccups. I will be glad to get back to not having to limit my food options, but I think I will incorporate more salads into my life in general. I came up with a bunch of tasty ideas that I won’t let go to waste!

Besides filling up my mental recipe box with ideas, I learned a bunch of other things about salads and their place in my life. Here are 10 of those things:

Five Foods I’m Taking out of Retirement

Every now and then, I like to shake things up with my eating to keep myself interested and in check. One thing I realized is that there are some foods I used to lean on heavily during the early stages of my weight loss journey that I haven’t touched in quite some time. I think I’ll add them back into rotation for variety’s sake.

Five of the foods I have in mind are:

1. Light English muffins. I used to make breakfast sandwiches with light multigrain English muffins, or eat them with soup or a salad, drizzled with olive oil and spices. But they’ve gone out of favor in my house for fat-free tortillas, whole wheat bread, and light hamburger buns. I think it’s time to re-introduce this hearty carb.
2. Spinach. I used to tuck spinach in everywhere I could–sandwiches, soups, even burritos, or sauteed with olive oil and garlic. But before my salad experiment this year, I hadn’t touched spinach in a while (unless you count the frozen stuff that looks like it came from inside a lawn mower). Adding fresh baby spinach is quick, easy, low-calorie way to get in a lot of important nutrients. It’s high time I stop giving spinach the cold shoulder.
3. Turkey pepperoni. Turkey pepperoni was a go-to protein snack for me at one time. I also used it on pita pizzas and in lasagna. I have a some sitting in my fridge now, and will be bagging it up for my pre-dinner snack, with fruit or veggies.
4. Soup. In the past, I’d take light vegetable soup and add a protein (usually chicken, turkey pepperoni, turkey ham or turkey sausage), and maybe some spinach. A soup that’s made hearty on your own terms can be filling, healthy and tasty. It would make sense for me to ramp up my soup consumption again, especially now during the winter.
5. Unsweetened applesauce. The little 1/2-cup plastic containers of no-sugar-added applesauce made a convenient snack or breakfast component. I later moved on to eating more actual fruit, but I’ve recently used unsweetened applesauce mixed in with yogurt for breakfast. I also have a jar that I’ll dole out in cup or 1/2-cup servings (dusted with cinnamon) as dessert or a snack when paired with a protein.

It can be tempting to get into a zone with foods that seem to click with your body, but it’s possible you’ll get tired of those foods after a while. I believe that no foods should be off-limits, and that certainly goes double for putting old, healthy favorites back into rotation.

Are there any foods you’re realizing that have worked for you but haven’t passed through your lips in a good while? Which ones would you bring back in a hearbeat?

How I Fight Hunger Every Day

Congratulations to you if you are starting a weight loss program for the new year, resuming one from last year, or continuing to soldier on with an ongoing program! Losing weight is challenging, but planning ahead makes it much smoother going.

One thing that I hear people complain about (and a thing that was hard for me when I started on Weight Watchers more than three years ago) was dealing with hunger. When you start to lose weight, you’ll be eating less than you’ve been used to. But there are different things you can do to successfully fight hunger. Here are things that I do every day:

Don’t skip breakfast. Medical professionals tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because it helps to spread your calories out in a more balanced manner throughout the day, it is kinder to your body after having not eaten overnight, and because it can help to boost your metabolism. I eat breakfast, and I make sure that it’s well balanced. (Examples: 2 eggs “fried” in cooking spray on a light hamburger bun, turkey deli meat on a toasted slice of whole wheat bread spread with reduced fat cream cheese, a fat-free tortilla spread with 1/2 cup of fat-free refried beans and 1 oz. of reduced-fat cheddar cheese. I typically eat these things with a piece of fruit and coffee.)

Eat a snack or two (with protein). I know some people swear by eating five or six small meals during the day, but I typically eat three meals and a snack or two, depending on how hungry I am (or how light my meals are). I’d eat one snack before lunch, and another before dinner. I generally eat a protein with a fruit or serving of vegetables. (For example, a piece of reduced-fat string cheese with an apple, a serving of turkey pepperoni with carrots, a half cup of fat-free plain Greek yogurt with fruit, or a Kashi granola bar, with or without a piece of fruit.)

Eat a small dessert. Not only does eating something extra contribute to fullness, but it helps me to not feel deprived during the day and week. I typically eat something sweet after lunch and maybe after dinner, too. I’ve gone into more detail and given light dessert recommendations here.

Choose carbs wisely. Rather than white potatoes, rice and pasta being a staple in my diet, I eat starch vegetables most days to keep myself full and maximize nutrients. Here is a list of different options. If I eat a salad, however, I might be more likely to eat a refined carb (like a serving of mini pretzels or baked chips or tortillas), because I can load up on vegetables instead to add the filling component to the meal.

Eat something when you’re hungry. This sounds obvious, but how many times have you tried to ignore the rumbling in your stomach when it came an hour or so before mealtime? As you’re getting a routine down, it’s better to eat something when you’re hungry (really physically hungry, as opposed to wanting to eat for emotional reasons) than to let your stomach suffer in silence. Have a snack with protein if you haven’t already, or a handful of raw veggies (or a piece of fruit) with some tea if you have. You can always refine your eating patterns later, but don’t leave your body in the lurch in the now.

These strategies have served me well over the past several years, and I know I’ll be leaning on them heavily as I incorporate more salads into my meal plans this month. I also hope to start exercising regularly, and that also will require that I use strategies to keep hunger at bay to their fullest. These are my suggestions, but definitely experiment to see what works for you! And please let me know if you have other ideas that have served you well.

My January Salad Days

Here is my gallery of images for my challenge to eat a salad a day for the month of January. I survived!

My Salad Days of January: 10 Ideas

In years past, I’ve felt no interest whatsoever in eating salads this time of year. Who wants cool, crisp lettuce when the outdoors ground cover it resembles is coated with a layer of frost every morning? This was my previous line of thought.  Roasted veggies, or those that have taken leisurely baths in soups or stews sounded cozy and nutritious, while raw veggies fresh from the fridge sounded as appealing as a December swim in the English Channel.

But for some reason I’m interested in salads this winter. Maybe it’s the guarantee of getting in a bunch of veggie servings, or maybe that means I, as someone who dislikes winter, am really trying to ignore the fact that the season is here.

Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to kick off the New Year by eating a salad every day for the month of January. I look forward to this challenge after having had a heavy eating holiday season.

This Web MD article agrees that a salad a day is a good idea, for the fiber, the nutrients in the ingredients, the ability of salads to fill you up on minimal calories, and because it can be a good way to get in healthy fats (if you add nuts, avocado, or olive oil to your salad).

Here are some salad ideas I will undoubtedly use in January:

1. Turkey or chicken Caesar salad: top lettuce with the meat, add a light Caesar or Caesar vinaigrette dressing, and a tablespoon or two of grated parmesan. Pass on the croutons and opt for a carb side instead.
2. Tuna salad: top your veggies with 1/2 cup of tuna (packed in water), with 1T of light mayonnaise mixed in. Salad dressing is optional.
3. Taco salad: the next time you make tacos, add the leftover meat to your vegetables, along with reduced fat cheddar. As dressing, try mixing salsa (1/4 or 1/3 of a cup) with 1 or 2T of fat-free ranch.
4. Salmon salad: top your greens with grilled or blackened salmon, or canned salmon. If I’m eating blackened salmon or a flavorful grilled salmon, I might pass on the salad dressing. Otherwise, I’d go with a fat-free honey mustard vinaigrette.
5. Grilled shrimp salad: just like it sounds, grilled shrimp over veggies. I’d choose the dressing depending on the spices the shrimp are seasoned with (or go with no dressing).
6. Jerk pork or chicken salad: toss a little avocado in with the meat. I might also try adding a little pineapple or mango. I’d probably pass on the dressing to let the spicy flavors have control.
7. Cheeseburger salad: crumble a turkey or lean ground beef burger over the greens. Add reduced fat cheddar, Swiss, feta, or any other kind of cheese that you’d normally put on a burger.
8. Buffalo chicken salad: microwave and dice a breaded chicken patty. For the dressing, mix 2T of light or fat-free blue cheese dressing with hot sauce to taste.
9. Harvest turkey salad: along with the turkey, go with an ounce of Havarti cheese and a tablespoon or two of dried cranberries.
10. Italian salad: pair part-skim mozzarella or provolone with  turkey pepperoni and/or salami. Add pepperoncini if you’d like.

Here are 10 ideas, enough to get me a third of the way through my month of salad days! I’d generally eat 3 or 4 ounces of the meat (exception: 2 oz of sliced turkey breast, and 2 or 3 oz of the shrimp) and a carb side with the salad–pretzels, baked chips, tortillas or cheese curls, or a a slice of toast or a light hamburger bun (served plain or topped with light butter substitute or olive oil, with or without spices). As far as the greenery, I’d recommend anything but iceberg lettuce (like romaine, spinach, spring mix, etc.), because iceberg will have the least nutritional value.

If you are interested in ramping up your salad eating, I hope you find something you enjoy! If you have any additional easy salad ideas, please feel free to share.

Baked Apple Crisp

I first ate apple crisp in elementary school, and the fond memories have stayed with me for a couple of decades. Apple crisp is like a crunchy cousin of apple pie–a hash of mellowed out apples and sweet, crunchy crumbs, sometimes also dotted with raisins. It was a sweet treat that accompanied the entree du jour that I picked up in the lunch line.

After seeing a good sautéed apple recipe on Suck It, Martha site, I decided to experiment and make some apple crisp. It’s still a work in progress, but here’s where I started:

• 4 apples, cored, peeled and sliced (I used Granny Smith apples. To make things easier, I used the gadget that cores the apple and slices it into 8 wedges Then I peeled each individual wedge and cut them into 3 slices.)
• 2 T I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light, melted
• Cinnamon to taste
• 1 cup Kashi Go Lean Crunch (or a cheaper knock-off of this brand)
• 2 T raisins (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Mix the apples, butter and cinnamon; add to a square baking pan. (I sprayed the pan with butter-flavored nonstick spray, but I don’t think I’ll do that in the future. Also, I didn’t add any sweetener to the recipe, but if you’d like to add some, now would be the time.)

Mix in the raisins and the cereal. Bake, uncovered, until the apples are tender. The end.

When I made the apple crisp this way, the apples turned out fine and were seasoned well, but the cereal was too soft. In the future, I think I’ll either add the cereal in the last 5 to 10 minutes of cooking, or add it to each serving once the pan comes out of the oven.

Do you have any suggestions for me to make this more reflective of my childhood memory? Please let me know of any additions or subtractions you would make.