Last night, I didn't actually steam vegetables as a Quick-Clean side dish.
No, instead I did something a bit more indulgent.
I put about 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter in my stir fry pan and turned on the heat.
I pulled two Italian squashes from the vegetable crisper and lined them up on the cutting board. Like Che Guevara lined up political dissenters to shoot them, I put the zuchini side by side and sliced them simultaneously into round wafers, and then I cut them into half disks.
I added the zuchini to the hot butter in the wok, sprinkled on some seasoned salt and pepper, and cooked them to perfection.
Somehow, the flavor of Italian squash combined perfectly with Swedish meatballs made with Jamaican Allspice. It gives us hope for a world where we all live in harmony.
However, the residue in the wok from this simple concoction is a greenish coating that required overnight soaking to get it clean.
And there's the dirty truth: sometimes even the most dedicated Q-C C advocate occasionally sacrifices easy cleaning for flavor.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Swedish Meatballs
Here's another simple recipe with little cleanup.
All you need is 16 to 20 ounces of ground meat, Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, a cup of low fat milk, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some seasonings.
I used to exclusively use ground beef, but I began using whatever low fat ground meat happened to be the cheapest, with 93% fat free ground turkey becoming the most common. You may be surprised to learn that Farmer John Ground Pork is 95% fat free, but I can't always find that.
These ground meats are available in styrofoam trays, and that's where I prepare them, saving the usual preparation bowl.
Wash your hands thoroughly with antibacterial detergent, because this time you're going to treat the food like Play Doh. Sprinkle seasoned salt (or garlic salt if you like that flavor better) and pepper onto the ground meat. For turkey, I like to add a little Jamaican Allspice, but not too much. It gives the meatballs a little extra bite that makes me forget about the fact that they are turkey instead of beef.
Maybe you have other seasonings you like to use, and you can always customize your dishes to suit your unique tastes. If people say they like your food, then you may discover that your tastes are universal. With a stew, you might be able to taste it as you go, but in mixing raw meat, just take your best guess and try to remember to add, for example, less or more salt next time.
Press all the meat together. Lean meat requires a certain amount of pressure to become packed into meat balls. Start rolling small meat balls, stacking them in one side of the tray. Once you have all the meatballs made, again wash your hands thorouoghly.
Put two tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of a pot or pan large enough to cook your meatballs without stacking them. Heat the pan on medium until the oil is hot. Pour the meatballs from the tray from a low level and be careful to not splatter oil.
Brown the meatballs on one side, then turn them over to brown the other side. When they are browned (some might call them a bit singed), add the can of soup. I use mushroom soup most of the time, but I actually got the original recipe off a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup. As odd as it sounds, using chicken soup with beef meatballs works pretty well, and it is a solid choice, but I like the mushroom soup a little better.
Immediately fill the soup can with low fat milk and pour that into the pot. Stir it all up with a cooking spoon.
Turn down the heat to simmer, and cook it for another ten minutes or more.
I eat the meatballs with Atkins Low Carb bread usually, but it actually tastes best with rice. One of the easiest ways to make riceis by following the directions on the bag for cooking it in the microwave in a glass dish. For some reason, different brands of rice have different directions, so just go with whatever the particular manufacturer advises. From a Q-C C perspective, cooking in teh microwave means your serving dish for the rice is the same as your cooking dish.
The glass dish and cover cleans much easier than a pan and its cover for cooking rice. You'll find the pot in which you cooked the meatballs cleans up extremely easily, though I don't exactly know why. Maybe it's because I use bread to wipe the bottom of it before I wash it, not wanting to waste any. The soup makes a tasty gravy.
A good side dish is a fresh vegetable like asparagus, broccoli or sliced zuchini steamed with butter for about two to three minutes in a glass dish in your microwave. This cleans up easily, too.
All you need is 16 to 20 ounces of ground meat, Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, a cup of low fat milk, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and some seasonings.
I used to exclusively use ground beef, but I began using whatever low fat ground meat happened to be the cheapest, with 93% fat free ground turkey becoming the most common. You may be surprised to learn that Farmer John Ground Pork is 95% fat free, but I can't always find that.
These ground meats are available in styrofoam trays, and that's where I prepare them, saving the usual preparation bowl.
Wash your hands thoroughly with antibacterial detergent, because this time you're going to treat the food like Play Doh. Sprinkle seasoned salt (or garlic salt if you like that flavor better) and pepper onto the ground meat. For turkey, I like to add a little Jamaican Allspice, but not too much. It gives the meatballs a little extra bite that makes me forget about the fact that they are turkey instead of beef.
Maybe you have other seasonings you like to use, and you can always customize your dishes to suit your unique tastes. If people say they like your food, then you may discover that your tastes are universal. With a stew, you might be able to taste it as you go, but in mixing raw meat, just take your best guess and try to remember to add, for example, less or more salt next time.
Press all the meat together. Lean meat requires a certain amount of pressure to become packed into meat balls. Start rolling small meat balls, stacking them in one side of the tray. Once you have all the meatballs made, again wash your hands thorouoghly.
Put two tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of a pot or pan large enough to cook your meatballs without stacking them. Heat the pan on medium until the oil is hot. Pour the meatballs from the tray from a low level and be careful to not splatter oil.
Brown the meatballs on one side, then turn them over to brown the other side. When they are browned (some might call them a bit singed), add the can of soup. I use mushroom soup most of the time, but I actually got the original recipe off a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup. As odd as it sounds, using chicken soup with beef meatballs works pretty well, and it is a solid choice, but I like the mushroom soup a little better.
Immediately fill the soup can with low fat milk and pour that into the pot. Stir it all up with a cooking spoon.
Turn down the heat to simmer, and cook it for another ten minutes or more.
I eat the meatballs with Atkins Low Carb bread usually, but it actually tastes best with rice. One of the easiest ways to make riceis by following the directions on the bag for cooking it in the microwave in a glass dish. For some reason, different brands of rice have different directions, so just go with whatever the particular manufacturer advises. From a Q-C C perspective, cooking in teh microwave means your serving dish for the rice is the same as your cooking dish.
The glass dish and cover cleans much easier than a pan and its cover for cooking rice. You'll find the pot in which you cooked the meatballs cleans up extremely easily, though I don't exactly know why. Maybe it's because I use bread to wipe the bottom of it before I wash it, not wanting to waste any. The soup makes a tasty gravy.
A good side dish is a fresh vegetable like asparagus, broccoli or sliced zuchini steamed with butter for about two to three minutes in a glass dish in your microwave. This cleans up easily, too.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Tony Roma's, T.G.I. Friday's or Home Cookin'?
When my young family lived in San Diego County a few miles from the coast, we would sometimes rent a hotel on the beach for the weekend. Whenever we stayed in Ocean Beach, we would walk over for one meal at Tony Roma's.
It wasn't the name's similarity to that of a Frank Sinatra movie detective, or even the balloon animals made by some out-of-costume clown who always seemed to be there, that brought us back. It was the succulent barbecued ribs.
When we moved to Los Angeles County, we found a TGI Friday's near our house that served Jack Daniels Ribs, and that soon became a local favorite. In fact, in New Orleans for a vacation, we stayed in a Holiday Inn Express that happened to have TGI Friday's on the ground floor, and despite going to Emeril's and Cafe Dumond, it was the ribs that brought us back instead of staying out and about in a city renowned for its cuisine, even if I dissented from the consensus dinner choice by eating fish, having recently started the Atkins Diet.
When you've had a particularly tough week, perhaps you decide you deserve to splurge with a night out, licking the barbecue sauce and pork fat off your fingers at Tony Roma's or TGI Friday's. There's nothing wrong with that occasionally, but the meals aren't cheap. Combined with some french fries or mashed potatoes, and maybe some cheese bread, and you can quickly pack on the pounds if you do it regularly.
Here's a quick and easy way to satisfy that longing for barbecued ribs without leaving home....and with a lot fewer calories.
This is so easy, it seems dumb writing it, but here goes.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a glass cooking dish with...you guessed it....Reynold's Non-Stick Pan Lining Paper.
In the tray that it comes in, cut two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts into lengthwise strips. I trim off all the fat, but considering you are replacing baby back ribs that often have a lot more fat, you shouldn't feel guilty about leaving any fat on the chicken breast. I simply don't like chicken fat, so I cut it off and throw it out.
Put the strips in the the bottom of the cooking dish in one layer. If you can separate them, great, but if you have so many that they fill the tray, that's okay too. Now, pick your favorite barbecue sauce. You can actually buy Tony Roma's, with its distinctive red color, or the dark molassys coloring of Jack Daniels Barbecue Sauce. You can get Bullseye Memphis Style for more spice, or Sweet Baby Ray's for more sweetness. KC Masterpiece is another old favorite. Yesterday I bought Safeway Mesquite Smoked Barbecue Sauce, because it was on and had a lower sugar content than some others I was considering, and it tasted great by eatin' time.
Anyway, liberally pour barbecue sauce on your chicken, and because you don't have to worry about scraping it off the dish thanks to the Pan Lining Paper, turn them upside down and get them covered all over. You don't need it to be real thick, but you want it all over every piece of chicken. I do this with my fingers, because doing it with a fork or spoon somehow results in the barbecue sauce being on my hands regardless. Just be sure to wash with antibacterial soap after the sauce is on the chicken.
When the oven finishes pre-heating (yes, preparation is that fast), put the pan in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes. Now I know this isn't real Texas-style Barbecue cooked in an old oil drum heated to 1100 degrees for 48 hours, and not even the often derided "grilling" (what Californian's call barbecuing), but it tastes pretty good.
Instead of the garlic and butter mashed potatoes, cut the tops off some super-healthy broccoli and throw the stems away. Put the little clovers in a mid-sized bowl (about twice the size of a cereal bowl), add a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of water. When the the timer on the oven says you have about two minutes left, microwave the broccoli on high. I like adding a few carrots, but some people say the broccoli cooks too much faster than the carrots, so do it whatever way you like. Carrots might take three minutes to cook. In any case, some healthy vegetables along with the lean "barbecued" chicken should satisfy your longing for ribs, but not necessarily your desire to be out and about.
After putting the chicken in the oven and prepping the broccoli, you can do your laundry, surf the internet, write a blog or start watching an old Frank Sinatra movie. It's amazing what you can accomplish in the time it takes to go to a restaurant and wait for a menu. Clean-up for the "ribs" is simply putting leftovers (if there are any) in a Baggie and throwing away the pan liner. Wash the bowl in which you cooked the brocolli, plus any silverware and serving dish you used, and you are done. No mess at all to clean up.
It wasn't the name's similarity to that of a Frank Sinatra movie detective, or even the balloon animals made by some out-of-costume clown who always seemed to be there, that brought us back. It was the succulent barbecued ribs.
When we moved to Los Angeles County, we found a TGI Friday's near our house that served Jack Daniels Ribs, and that soon became a local favorite. In fact, in New Orleans for a vacation, we stayed in a Holiday Inn Express that happened to have TGI Friday's on the ground floor, and despite going to Emeril's and Cafe Dumond, it was the ribs that brought us back instead of staying out and about in a city renowned for its cuisine, even if I dissented from the consensus dinner choice by eating fish, having recently started the Atkins Diet.
When you've had a particularly tough week, perhaps you decide you deserve to splurge with a night out, licking the barbecue sauce and pork fat off your fingers at Tony Roma's or TGI Friday's. There's nothing wrong with that occasionally, but the meals aren't cheap. Combined with some french fries or mashed potatoes, and maybe some cheese bread, and you can quickly pack on the pounds if you do it regularly.
Here's a quick and easy way to satisfy that longing for barbecued ribs without leaving home....and with a lot fewer calories.
This is so easy, it seems dumb writing it, but here goes.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a glass cooking dish with...you guessed it....Reynold's Non-Stick Pan Lining Paper.
In the tray that it comes in, cut two or three boneless, skinless chicken breasts into lengthwise strips. I trim off all the fat, but considering you are replacing baby back ribs that often have a lot more fat, you shouldn't feel guilty about leaving any fat on the chicken breast. I simply don't like chicken fat, so I cut it off and throw it out.
Put the strips in the the bottom of the cooking dish in one layer. If you can separate them, great, but if you have so many that they fill the tray, that's okay too. Now, pick your favorite barbecue sauce. You can actually buy Tony Roma's, with its distinctive red color, or the dark molassys coloring of Jack Daniels Barbecue Sauce. You can get Bullseye Memphis Style for more spice, or Sweet Baby Ray's for more sweetness. KC Masterpiece is another old favorite. Yesterday I bought Safeway Mesquite Smoked Barbecue Sauce, because it was on and had a lower sugar content than some others I was considering, and it tasted great by eatin' time.
Anyway, liberally pour barbecue sauce on your chicken, and because you don't have to worry about scraping it off the dish thanks to the Pan Lining Paper, turn them upside down and get them covered all over. You don't need it to be real thick, but you want it all over every piece of chicken. I do this with my fingers, because doing it with a fork or spoon somehow results in the barbecue sauce being on my hands regardless. Just be sure to wash with antibacterial soap after the sauce is on the chicken.
When the oven finishes pre-heating (yes, preparation is that fast), put the pan in the oven and set the timer for 45 minutes. Now I know this isn't real Texas-style Barbecue cooked in an old oil drum heated to 1100 degrees for 48 hours, and not even the often derided "grilling" (what Californian's call barbecuing), but it tastes pretty good.
Instead of the garlic and butter mashed potatoes, cut the tops off some super-healthy broccoli and throw the stems away. Put the little clovers in a mid-sized bowl (about twice the size of a cereal bowl), add a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of water. When the the timer on the oven says you have about two minutes left, microwave the broccoli on high. I like adding a few carrots, but some people say the broccoli cooks too much faster than the carrots, so do it whatever way you like. Carrots might take three minutes to cook. In any case, some healthy vegetables along with the lean "barbecued" chicken should satisfy your longing for ribs, but not necessarily your desire to be out and about.
After putting the chicken in the oven and prepping the broccoli, you can do your laundry, surf the internet, write a blog or start watching an old Frank Sinatra movie. It's amazing what you can accomplish in the time it takes to go to a restaurant and wait for a menu. Clean-up for the "ribs" is simply putting leftovers (if there are any) in a Baggie and throwing away the pan liner. Wash the bowl in which you cooked the brocolli, plus any silverware and serving dish you used, and you are done. No mess at all to clean up.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Instant Parmesan'll Get You
The late, great John Lennon loved this recipe so much that he wrote a memorable song about it.
Not really.
But I did use a really bad pun of his song as the title for this article, so it is almost the same thing.
Eggplant Parmesan is a vegetarian dish that even carnivores will occasionally order in a fine Italian restaurant.
Anyone who has made Eggplant Parmesan at home knows it is a time consuming and messy ordeal that involves splattering grease on the stove followed by baking the ingredients in a dish that requires scraping.
Here's a way to make Eggplant Parmesan as easy as 1 2.
That's right, you don't even have time to count to 3.
Well, maybe you do, but does that really matter?
First, you buy an eggplant at a farmer's market or Sprout's or whatever source you find superior for fresh vegetables. I usually pay about 99 cents per eggplant, so I buy the biggest one I can find. If you pay by the pound, a small one is enough for a meal and will probably fit in the baking dish more easily.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Line a glass baking dish entirely with our old Q-C C friend Reynolds Pan Lining Paper. Overlap the edges so that no food bakes on glass. This is the key to easy cleanup. Pour Progresso Italian Style Bread Crumbs into a little pile on one end of the dish (inside the dish is obviously the less messy way to go).
Cut eggplant cross-wise into circles about 3/8 to 1/2 inches thick.
In a relatively flat bowl, break an egg and beat it with a fork. Alternatively, you can pour about an inch of milk. Or you can use some combination of those two if you started using milk and realized you didn't have enough. Add more as necessary.
With a fork, put a piece of eggplant into the bowl to cover on one side, and then the other. Put the slice in the bread crumbs and flip it again. Now set it at the other half of the dish. When you run out of bread crumbs, add more. Repeat the process with all the eggplant, and you'll have a pile of eggplant ready to be fried.
Here's the big Quick-Clean difference. Bake, don't fry, the breaded eggplant. It may not be as perfectly crispy as when you fry it in oil, but it has less fat, is quicker to make and, most importantly, far less messy.
Ideally, your dish is large enough to fit all of the eggplant in one level, but if you bought the biggest eggplant like I always do, then you don't have room for it all on the bottom and have to layer them. By the way, you'll probably have some extra bread crumbs at the end of the pan used for coating. Don't worry about that. Just try to judge how much you really need for the last few pieces of eggplant and then spread the remaining crumbs as thin as you can. It doesn't seem to make any difference once baked, as it either sticks to the eggplant or remains in the baking dish.
Or, you could bread the eggplant on wax paper separate for the baking dish, which really isn't much messier as long as you don't let crumbs spill when you crumple up the wax paper to throw it away. That's the way I used to do it, and there is something to be said for that method, because you aren't stacking eggplant in one half of the dish to be redistributed later. In any case, put eggplant uniformly around the baking dish.
If the oven has reached 400 degrees (yes, the preparation takes no more than that much time), put the eggplant into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Wash the dipping bowl and fork using anti-bacterial dish soap.
After 20 minutes, carefully remove the dish and set it on a heat-safe surface. If you used the whole eggplant, then most likely they are stacked. One layer makes for crispier eggplant, and sometimes I only use enough eggplant for one level and save the rest in a refrigerated Baggie for use the next day, but eggplant parmesan is a great leftover, and the crispiness of the eggplant doesn't seem to make much difference once the marinara sauce has been added.
Don't use too much marinara. A tablespoon full per eggplant slice is usually plenty. Move around the top layers of eggplant so that you can put marinara on the bottom pieces. All eggplant slices get their own tablespoon. DO NOT simply pour marinara sauce on top of the eggplant, or you' just get a big goopy mess. Save the leftover pasta sauce for making Q-C C Thin Crust Pizza or possibly Lasagmlette (an egg dish which we'll cover later).
Bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. Carefully remove the dish from the oven and place it on a heat-safe surface.
Now, it is time for the crowning touch. Most people would use Italian cheeses including fresh grated Parmesan Cheese, and saying otherwise sounds crazy, but I just use the same Mexican grated cheese I use for most dishes.
If you have guests, you probably should add some freshly grated Parmesan, which is far different from that found in those cardboard tubes with plastic shakers at the end. However, even if it isn't close to be technically right, I find grated Mexican cheese works fine. Lift some of the top pieces to put cheese on the bottom layer of eggplant. Then cover the dish liberally with grated cheese of your choice. Always be careful working with hot dishes.
Bake another 15 or 20 minutes. Let it cool about 5 minutes before serving, if you can resist the aroma that long.
A few months ago, I saw a very funny video about a couple dining at the home of vegetarian friends that raised this legitimate point: when known vegetarians come over, the cook will inevitably prepare a vegetable entree for them, but when vegetarians host a meal, they never serve meat.
If you're a vegetarian, I doubt you would fix Chicken Parmesan for those guests, but you could if you felt so inclined, assuming you have a second glass baking dish.
To make Parmesan Chicken, the directions are quite similar. The only difference is that you take two fresh chicken breasts and slice them in half to make fillets about 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick. Bread them and back them in a lined baking dish just as you did the eggplant, and then follow the same recipe.
Whether you make Eggplant Parmesan or Chicken Parmesan, the final cleanup should be as simple as throwing away the lining paper. You can use the fork to eat for eating your dinner.
Not really.
But I did use a really bad pun of his song as the title for this article, so it is almost the same thing.
Eggplant Parmesan is a vegetarian dish that even carnivores will occasionally order in a fine Italian restaurant.
Anyone who has made Eggplant Parmesan at home knows it is a time consuming and messy ordeal that involves splattering grease on the stove followed by baking the ingredients in a dish that requires scraping.
Here's a way to make Eggplant Parmesan as easy as 1 2.
That's right, you don't even have time to count to 3.
Well, maybe you do, but does that really matter?
First, you buy an eggplant at a farmer's market or Sprout's or whatever source you find superior for fresh vegetables. I usually pay about 99 cents per eggplant, so I buy the biggest one I can find. If you pay by the pound, a small one is enough for a meal and will probably fit in the baking dish more easily.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Line a glass baking dish entirely with our old Q-C C friend Reynolds Pan Lining Paper. Overlap the edges so that no food bakes on glass. This is the key to easy cleanup. Pour Progresso Italian Style Bread Crumbs into a little pile on one end of the dish (inside the dish is obviously the less messy way to go).
Cut eggplant cross-wise into circles about 3/8 to 1/2 inches thick.
In a relatively flat bowl, break an egg and beat it with a fork. Alternatively, you can pour about an inch of milk. Or you can use some combination of those two if you started using milk and realized you didn't have enough. Add more as necessary.
With a fork, put a piece of eggplant into the bowl to cover on one side, and then the other. Put the slice in the bread crumbs and flip it again. Now set it at the other half of the dish. When you run out of bread crumbs, add more. Repeat the process with all the eggplant, and you'll have a pile of eggplant ready to be fried.
Here's the big Quick-Clean difference. Bake, don't fry, the breaded eggplant. It may not be as perfectly crispy as when you fry it in oil, but it has less fat, is quicker to make and, most importantly, far less messy.
Ideally, your dish is large enough to fit all of the eggplant in one level, but if you bought the biggest eggplant like I always do, then you don't have room for it all on the bottom and have to layer them. By the way, you'll probably have some extra bread crumbs at the end of the pan used for coating. Don't worry about that. Just try to judge how much you really need for the last few pieces of eggplant and then spread the remaining crumbs as thin as you can. It doesn't seem to make any difference once baked, as it either sticks to the eggplant or remains in the baking dish.
Or, you could bread the eggplant on wax paper separate for the baking dish, which really isn't much messier as long as you don't let crumbs spill when you crumple up the wax paper to throw it away. That's the way I used to do it, and there is something to be said for that method, because you aren't stacking eggplant in one half of the dish to be redistributed later. In any case, put eggplant uniformly around the baking dish.
If the oven has reached 400 degrees (yes, the preparation takes no more than that much time), put the eggplant into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Wash the dipping bowl and fork using anti-bacterial dish soap.
After 20 minutes, carefully remove the dish and set it on a heat-safe surface. If you used the whole eggplant, then most likely they are stacked. One layer makes for crispier eggplant, and sometimes I only use enough eggplant for one level and save the rest in a refrigerated Baggie for use the next day, but eggplant parmesan is a great leftover, and the crispiness of the eggplant doesn't seem to make much difference once the marinara sauce has been added.
Don't use too much marinara. A tablespoon full per eggplant slice is usually plenty. Move around the top layers of eggplant so that you can put marinara on the bottom pieces. All eggplant slices get their own tablespoon. DO NOT simply pour marinara sauce on top of the eggplant, or you' just get a big goopy mess. Save the leftover pasta sauce for making Q-C C Thin Crust Pizza or possibly Lasagmlette (an egg dish which we'll cover later).
Bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. Carefully remove the dish from the oven and place it on a heat-safe surface.
Now, it is time for the crowning touch. Most people would use Italian cheeses including fresh grated Parmesan Cheese, and saying otherwise sounds crazy, but I just use the same Mexican grated cheese I use for most dishes.
If you have guests, you probably should add some freshly grated Parmesan, which is far different from that found in those cardboard tubes with plastic shakers at the end. However, even if it isn't close to be technically right, I find grated Mexican cheese works fine. Lift some of the top pieces to put cheese on the bottom layer of eggplant. Then cover the dish liberally with grated cheese of your choice. Always be careful working with hot dishes.
Bake another 15 or 20 minutes. Let it cool about 5 minutes before serving, if you can resist the aroma that long.
A few months ago, I saw a very funny video about a couple dining at the home of vegetarian friends that raised this legitimate point: when known vegetarians come over, the cook will inevitably prepare a vegetable entree for them, but when vegetarians host a meal, they never serve meat.
If you're a vegetarian, I doubt you would fix Chicken Parmesan for those guests, but you could if you felt so inclined, assuming you have a second glass baking dish.
To make Parmesan Chicken, the directions are quite similar. The only difference is that you take two fresh chicken breasts and slice them in half to make fillets about 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick. Bread them and back them in a lined baking dish just as you did the eggplant, and then follow the same recipe.
Whether you make Eggplant Parmesan or Chicken Parmesan, the final cleanup should be as simple as throwing away the lining paper. You can use the fork to eat for eating your dinner.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Easy Stir Fry
Last night, I made Chicken Parmesan, but I thought I would stretch the menu a bit further, adding more vegetables as well as fresh chicken.
Chinese take-out is a tasty alternative to burgers and pizza, but frequently vegetables are overwhelmed by the carb-rich fried rice and chow mein. You can pretend sugar coated items like orange chicken and sweet and sour pork are healthy, but the truth is you're just eating some dessert with your protein.
At home, you can more effectively control what you're eating by only buying groceries that are your personal favorite nutritious foods. My wife Julie only likes certain vegetables, and if I cook onions, which I think smell great being seared with some olive oil and garlic, she is ready to knock down a wall when she comes home. Bell peppers are another no-no for her. If you like onions and peppers, please use them. They are very healthy and, to me, delicious.
You may have noticed that I don't give too many specific measurements. I think you can adjust your recipes according to your tastes. Similarly, use vegetables you like. As my granddad used to say, "If you don't like beans, you better not have them on your shelf."
Among the Julie-approved veggies are carrots, celery, zucchini (Italian squash), mushrooms and asparagus, which are the ones I used tonight. You'll notice I use carrots and celery a lot, because they are cheap and store a long time in the refrigerator. You can make just vegetables, but I usually include a meat, and most of the time for stir fry that is chicken.
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts create the least mess and, to me, taste the best. Sometimes you'll see split chicken breasts on sale, but these should only be used for stews where you boil the breasts to the point where the bones fall off. Otherwise, they're too difficult and messy to be worth a small net price savings.
2 or 3 pound packages are usually cheaper than smaller packages, and if you have a choice of grocery stores, usually one has it on sale.
Before you do anything else, re-trim the chicken in its styrofoam tray the butcher put them in. Trimming them on a cutting board may be a little easier, but it means you have potential salmanilla on the board. Bet rid of all the fat and gross stuff. I don't like touching chicken anyway, but cutting it in the tray, surrounded by the plastic bag, keeps your kitchen cleaner. Two breasts, or about 1 pound of chicken is a good amount to make. It will make two meals, whether for you and a guest, or one for now and one in a couple of days.
Fold the styrofoam over and enclose it with rubber bands before twist tying the plastic bag that has been surrounding it. Return it to the refrigerator.
For stir fry, I cut the breasts I will cook into small pieces, still leaving them in the tray. At this point, put about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a wok or large frying pan and heat it on the stove top.
After a minute or so, drop a small piece of chicken in. If it sizzles, you can add the rest of the chicken. Otherwise wait until you hear it sizzle. Sprinkle it with pepper and seasoned salt. Let the chicken cook on one side for quite a while to get a nice crispy brown.
While browning the chicken, clean and cut your vegetables.
You can peel whole carrots or save time with pre-cleaned baby carrots. Cut them into whatever size pieces you like.
Clean the zuchini, then cut it into slices about 1/4 inches thick. Throw away the end pieces. Cut the circles in half.
Clean the celery, then cut off and discard the tops and bottoms. Cut the celery hearts into pieces about 1/4 inch thick. By the way, if you like bigger pieces, go right ahead. Just don't throw in whole celery stalks.
Flip over your chicken about now to brown the other side.
Wash and clean the mushrooms. Note that you never wash mushrooms until you are ready to use them, so don't wash the leftovers, if you bought more than you can use in one dish, which is normal.
Break off about the bottom third of the asparagus as you wash it and throw that part away. Cut off the tops with a bit of stalk, then cut the rest of the stalk into smaller pieces.
What I do next may just be idiosynchratic, but I add vegetables in perceive order of how slowly they cook, starting with carrots. Basically, that is the same order you just cut yours, unless you substituted others, although I do throw in some of the asparagus stalk bits earlier. The asparagus tops are delicate and must be added last.
At some point along the line, add about one or two tablespooons of Lawry's Teriyaki Marinade. It's also possible to combine ingredients like pineapple juice and soy sauce to make your own, but you have to decide if it is worth the trouble. I think this tastes pretty good. If you add the teriyaki sauce last, cook for at least about 5 or 10 more minutes.
From a Quick-Clean Cuisine perspective, stir fry is great because you only use one pan. The cutting board had no chicken on it, so you can clean it quickly with soap and water. Serve in your favorite bowl and, if you have chopsticks left over from your last Panda Express meal, you won't even get a fork dirty.
Chinese take-out is a tasty alternative to burgers and pizza, but frequently vegetables are overwhelmed by the carb-rich fried rice and chow mein. You can pretend sugar coated items like orange chicken and sweet and sour pork are healthy, but the truth is you're just eating some dessert with your protein.
At home, you can more effectively control what you're eating by only buying groceries that are your personal favorite nutritious foods. My wife Julie only likes certain vegetables, and if I cook onions, which I think smell great being seared with some olive oil and garlic, she is ready to knock down a wall when she comes home. Bell peppers are another no-no for her. If you like onions and peppers, please use them. They are very healthy and, to me, delicious.
You may have noticed that I don't give too many specific measurements. I think you can adjust your recipes according to your tastes. Similarly, use vegetables you like. As my granddad used to say, "If you don't like beans, you better not have them on your shelf."
Among the Julie-approved veggies are carrots, celery, zucchini (Italian squash), mushrooms and asparagus, which are the ones I used tonight. You'll notice I use carrots and celery a lot, because they are cheap and store a long time in the refrigerator. You can make just vegetables, but I usually include a meat, and most of the time for stir fry that is chicken.
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts create the least mess and, to me, taste the best. Sometimes you'll see split chicken breasts on sale, but these should only be used for stews where you boil the breasts to the point where the bones fall off. Otherwise, they're too difficult and messy to be worth a small net price savings.
2 or 3 pound packages are usually cheaper than smaller packages, and if you have a choice of grocery stores, usually one has it on sale.
Before you do anything else, re-trim the chicken in its styrofoam tray the butcher put them in. Trimming them on a cutting board may be a little easier, but it means you have potential salmanilla on the board. Bet rid of all the fat and gross stuff. I don't like touching chicken anyway, but cutting it in the tray, surrounded by the plastic bag, keeps your kitchen cleaner. Two breasts, or about 1 pound of chicken is a good amount to make. It will make two meals, whether for you and a guest, or one for now and one in a couple of days.
Fold the styrofoam over and enclose it with rubber bands before twist tying the plastic bag that has been surrounding it. Return it to the refrigerator.
For stir fry, I cut the breasts I will cook into small pieces, still leaving them in the tray. At this point, put about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a wok or large frying pan and heat it on the stove top.
After a minute or so, drop a small piece of chicken in. If it sizzles, you can add the rest of the chicken. Otherwise wait until you hear it sizzle. Sprinkle it with pepper and seasoned salt. Let the chicken cook on one side for quite a while to get a nice crispy brown.
While browning the chicken, clean and cut your vegetables.
You can peel whole carrots or save time with pre-cleaned baby carrots. Cut them into whatever size pieces you like.
Clean the celery, then cut off and discard the tops and bottoms. Cut the celery hearts into pieces about 1/4 inch thick. By the way, if you like bigger pieces, go right ahead. Just don't throw in whole celery stalks.
Flip over your chicken about now to brown the other side.
Wash and clean the mushrooms. Note that you never wash mushrooms until you are ready to use them, so don't wash the leftovers, if you bought more than you can use in one dish, which is normal.
Break off about the bottom third of the asparagus as you wash it and throw that part away. Cut off the tops with a bit of stalk, then cut the rest of the stalk into smaller pieces.
What I do next may just be idiosynchratic, but I add vegetables in perceive order of how slowly they cook, starting with carrots. Basically, that is the same order you just cut yours, unless you substituted others, although I do throw in some of the asparagus stalk bits earlier. The asparagus tops are delicate and must be added last.
At some point along the line, add about one or two tablespooons of Lawry's Teriyaki Marinade. It's also possible to combine ingredients like pineapple juice and soy sauce to make your own, but you have to decide if it is worth the trouble. I think this tastes pretty good. If you add the teriyaki sauce last, cook for at least about 5 or 10 more minutes.
From a Quick-Clean Cuisine perspective, stir fry is great because you only use one pan. The cutting board had no chicken on it, so you can clean it quickly with soap and water. Serve in your favorite bowl and, if you have chopsticks left over from your last Panda Express meal, you won't even get a fork dirty.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Veganomics
You may have surmised by now that I don't exactly advocate a vegan diet, but even the most stalwart Der Wienerschnitzel patron may well be wondering if I advocate eating more than a tablespoon of marinara sauce for daily vegetable intake. Yes, I do.
To that end, let me share the lunch I recently completed. Well, not exactly share the lunch but tell you how to replicate this delicious meal while adding only three more items to your shopping list: honey dijon mustard, Roma tomato and Hass avocado. I think alfalfa sprouts are a great addition to this mix, or perhaps a little lettuce, but I didn't have those in the refrigerator today. Put those on the list too, if you love them.
We'll once again resurrect that leftover Oscar Mayer turkey bacon. If you ate all the bacon at breakfast, you can substitute some lunch meat, assuming you have that in your refrigerator. In a pinch, you could use pepperoni, but only sparingly. In fact, I only use one piece of bacon on the sandwich.
The trick to saving time in preparation is multi-tasking. Stick a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster, and while it is heating, wash the outside of your avocado and cut it in half lengthwise with a steak knife. Avocados have a big pit in the middle, so you actually don't cut straight through, but I'm sure you can figure out how to cut a circle around the pit and pull the pieces apart. Remove and discard the pit, and put half of the avocado into a Baggie, preferably the one you previously had the bacon in (save the Baggie, save the planet!).
Wash the outside of the tomato and cut it in half, putting one half of that in the Baggie with the saved avocado half. If there's still a piece of bacon in there, you have done a lot of the prep work for another meal. You can slice the tomato at this time, but that requires getting a cutting surface messy, so I usually just wait until the toast is done.
Put one piece of toast on a plate. Push the avocado out of the peel, scraping any excess out with your knive. Press the avocado onto your toast so that it becomes a sort of thick, evenly-distributed paste. Crumple the bacon over the avocado to sprinkle it uniformly on the avocado. Slice the tomato over the top of the half-finished masterpiece. Spread mustard on the second piece of toast and and put it on top of the sandwich.
Unless you put your sandwich together with the food and mustard on the outside, this should be easier to cleanup than to make. Simply wash the plate and knife, and you're done.
If you are a vegetarian, you can eat this without any meat, and it still tastes very good. It is the combination of the avocado and honey dijon mustard that really delivers the knockout punch.
Bon appetit!
To that end, let me share the lunch I recently completed. Well, not exactly share the lunch but tell you how to replicate this delicious meal while adding only three more items to your shopping list: honey dijon mustard, Roma tomato and Hass avocado. I think alfalfa sprouts are a great addition to this mix, or perhaps a little lettuce, but I didn't have those in the refrigerator today. Put those on the list too, if you love them.
We'll once again resurrect that leftover Oscar Mayer turkey bacon. If you ate all the bacon at breakfast, you can substitute some lunch meat, assuming you have that in your refrigerator. In a pinch, you could use pepperoni, but only sparingly. In fact, I only use one piece of bacon on the sandwich.
The trick to saving time in preparation is multi-tasking. Stick a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster, and while it is heating, wash the outside of your avocado and cut it in half lengthwise with a steak knife. Avocados have a big pit in the middle, so you actually don't cut straight through, but I'm sure you can figure out how to cut a circle around the pit and pull the pieces apart. Remove and discard the pit, and put half of the avocado into a Baggie, preferably the one you previously had the bacon in (save the Baggie, save the planet!).
Wash the outside of the tomato and cut it in half, putting one half of that in the Baggie with the saved avocado half. If there's still a piece of bacon in there, you have done a lot of the prep work for another meal. You can slice the tomato at this time, but that requires getting a cutting surface messy, so I usually just wait until the toast is done.
Put one piece of toast on a plate. Push the avocado out of the peel, scraping any excess out with your knive. Press the avocado onto your toast so that it becomes a sort of thick, evenly-distributed paste. Crumple the bacon over the avocado to sprinkle it uniformly on the avocado. Slice the tomato over the top of the half-finished masterpiece. Spread mustard on the second piece of toast and and put it on top of the sandwich.
Unless you put your sandwich together with the food and mustard on the outside, this should be easier to cleanup than to make. Simply wash the plate and knife, and you're done.
If you are a vegetarian, you can eat this without any meat, and it still tastes very good. It is the combination of the avocado and honey dijon mustard that really delivers the knockout punch.
Bon appetit!
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Thin Crust Pizza
If you're making a shopping list for Quick-Clean Cuisine, you should already have included paper towels, eggs, bacon, grated cheese and tortillas.
If you did the extra credit and made toast with butter, then of course you need bread and a buttery spread. Very high fiber bread will literally force you to not overdo those tempting carbs found in most baked goods, and that is what I recommend, whether Sara Lee 45 Calories Delightful, Oroweat Double Fiber or some funky flaxseed loaf from Sprouts or Trader Joe's. Margarine is generally the cheapest spread, but a lot of studies indicate that old fashioned butter may be better for you, even if some traditionalists still say otherwise. I personally use butter for cooking, and on toast, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! There's always that balance between nutrition, taste and cost, so you'll have to decide what is best for you.
I could continue on with more egg recipes, but by the time you alternate bran flakes with low fat milk (put those on the list) in with scrambled eggs and bacon quesadillas, you should be set for breakfast for a couple of weeks. Adding sugar free syrup, hot sauce, sugar-free jelly and other condiments make simple scrambled eggs taste entirely different.
Tortillas come in packages of a dozen or more, and grated cheese is cheaper in larger quantities, so let's find another use for those with a delicious Quick-Clean dinner like thin crust pizza. Put some pasta sauce and pepperoni on your shopping list. While you're at it, here's another staple for Q-C C: parchment paper, or better yet, Reynolds Wrap Pan Lining Paper, which ingeniously combines the non-stick surface of parchment paper with the non-mess features of aluminum foil.
I never considered buying parchment paper until my daughter Amy needed it to make a copy of the Declaration of Independence as part of an elaborate scheme to steal the Declaration of Independence in order to decode the secret map on the back of it. Actually, she just needed it for a school project.
After creating the faux Declaration of Independence and scorching it with flames for aging, I saved the rest of the roll of parchment paper in case I should decide to steal the real Magna Carta. One day I was cleaning out the cupboards and realized parchment paper could be used to line a cookie sheet for baking. I decided to use it in my project to make crumpets out of Bisquick, believing a fast food restaurant starring the seemingly ubiquitous but surprisingly nearly never-tasted British roll might have less risk and moral dilemma than a life of British capers.
The experiment went quite well from the standpoint of proving that parchment paper kept food from sticking to pans, and I began using parchment paper regularly for anything I baked, probably beyond its recomended usage. The meat loaf pan still required cleaning, for example, but at least the meat wasn't baked onto the glass pan like enamel. For what it is worth, my crumpets weren't bad, but I have no idea if they even approximated a real crumpet. Then again, I don't know of anyone who could prove that they didn't.
Anyway, line a cookie sheet or pie pan (or whatever you can put in an oven at 400 degrees without breaking it) with parchment paper. As you pre-heat the oven, put a tortilla on the cooking sheet. I think flour tortillas work much better for most purposes, but if you like corn better and wonder if you can use it, the answer is, "Yes, you maize."
Sprinkle a little grated cheese on the tortilla, and then add a tablespoon of pasta sauce. If the mixture doesn't cover the tortilla, add a little more sauce. Next, add the pepperoni. I like to cover the whole tortilla, but as with everything, you can put as much or as little as you personally like. Sometimes, if I have leftover mushrooms, I'll add those, and anything you like on a pizza that you happen to have in your refrigerator can be added. Finally, put a serious topping of grated cheese on there. I used to spread olive oil on the bottom of the tortilla to add crispness, but I have since found that using a metal pan rather than a glass one makes it plenty crispy while at the same time less messy and lower in calories.
Bake your creation at 400 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes, and enjoy a simple dinner or snack. Crumble up the Pan Liner and throw it away. By the way, you can cook as many as you can fit on your cooking pan, as it tastes good as a leftover if your roommates don't snag it after they smell it cooking.
Of course, the pizza, in contrast to the crumpet, is truly ubiquitous, and making this version might seem tedious for a New Yorker who can buy a great slice for a couple of bucks on any given corner. The tortilla crust, however, makes this a low carb, high flavor meal for a lot fewer calories than what you get from most pizza places. In all fairness, I love Chicago-style deep dish pizzas, and I used to believe that not opting for thicker crust was just silly when feeding a hungry family, but if you're watching your weight, this is an easy substitution that's quick and easy to make and clean up.
And once again, you decide on your variations. If you have some leftover roasted chicken, use that and barbecue sauced instead of pepperoni and marinara for a California Pizza knockoff.
If you did the extra credit and made toast with butter, then of course you need bread and a buttery spread. Very high fiber bread will literally force you to not overdo those tempting carbs found in most baked goods, and that is what I recommend, whether Sara Lee 45 Calories Delightful, Oroweat Double Fiber or some funky flaxseed loaf from Sprouts or Trader Joe's. Margarine is generally the cheapest spread, but a lot of studies indicate that old fashioned butter may be better for you, even if some traditionalists still say otherwise. I personally use butter for cooking, and on toast, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! There's always that balance between nutrition, taste and cost, so you'll have to decide what is best for you.
I could continue on with more egg recipes, but by the time you alternate bran flakes with low fat milk (put those on the list) in with scrambled eggs and bacon quesadillas, you should be set for breakfast for a couple of weeks. Adding sugar free syrup, hot sauce, sugar-free jelly and other condiments make simple scrambled eggs taste entirely different.
Tortillas come in packages of a dozen or more, and grated cheese is cheaper in larger quantities, so let's find another use for those with a delicious Quick-Clean dinner like thin crust pizza. Put some pasta sauce and pepperoni on your shopping list. While you're at it, here's another staple for Q-C C: parchment paper, or better yet, Reynolds Wrap Pan Lining Paper, which ingeniously combines the non-stick surface of parchment paper with the non-mess features of aluminum foil.
I never considered buying parchment paper until my daughter Amy needed it to make a copy of the Declaration of Independence as part of an elaborate scheme to steal the Declaration of Independence in order to decode the secret map on the back of it. Actually, she just needed it for a school project.
After creating the faux Declaration of Independence and scorching it with flames for aging, I saved the rest of the roll of parchment paper in case I should decide to steal the real Magna Carta. One day I was cleaning out the cupboards and realized parchment paper could be used to line a cookie sheet for baking. I decided to use it in my project to make crumpets out of Bisquick, believing a fast food restaurant starring the seemingly ubiquitous but surprisingly nearly never-tasted British roll might have less risk and moral dilemma than a life of British capers.
The experiment went quite well from the standpoint of proving that parchment paper kept food from sticking to pans, and I began using parchment paper regularly for anything I baked, probably beyond its recomended usage. The meat loaf pan still required cleaning, for example, but at least the meat wasn't baked onto the glass pan like enamel. For what it is worth, my crumpets weren't bad, but I have no idea if they even approximated a real crumpet. Then again, I don't know of anyone who could prove that they didn't.
Anyway, line a cookie sheet or pie pan (or whatever you can put in an oven at 400 degrees without breaking it) with parchment paper. As you pre-heat the oven, put a tortilla on the cooking sheet. I think flour tortillas work much better for most purposes, but if you like corn better and wonder if you can use it, the answer is, "Yes, you maize."
Sprinkle a little grated cheese on the tortilla, and then add a tablespoon of pasta sauce. If the mixture doesn't cover the tortilla, add a little more sauce. Next, add the pepperoni. I like to cover the whole tortilla, but as with everything, you can put as much or as little as you personally like. Sometimes, if I have leftover mushrooms, I'll add those, and anything you like on a pizza that you happen to have in your refrigerator can be added. Finally, put a serious topping of grated cheese on there. I used to spread olive oil on the bottom of the tortilla to add crispness, but I have since found that using a metal pan rather than a glass one makes it plenty crispy while at the same time less messy and lower in calories.
Bake your creation at 400 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes, and enjoy a simple dinner or snack. Crumble up the Pan Liner and throw it away. By the way, you can cook as many as you can fit on your cooking pan, as it tastes good as a leftover if your roommates don't snag it after they smell it cooking.
Of course, the pizza, in contrast to the crumpet, is truly ubiquitous, and making this version might seem tedious for a New Yorker who can buy a great slice for a couple of bucks on any given corner. The tortilla crust, however, makes this a low carb, high flavor meal for a lot fewer calories than what you get from most pizza places. In all fairness, I love Chicago-style deep dish pizzas, and I used to believe that not opting for thicker crust was just silly when feeding a hungry family, but if you're watching your weight, this is an easy substitution that's quick and easy to make and clean up.
And once again, you decide on your variations. If you have some leftover roasted chicken, use that and barbecue sauced instead of pepperoni and marinara for a California Pizza knockoff.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Bacon Quesadilla
After enjoying Quick-Clean Cuisine Bacon and Eggs, you should find yourself with extra bacon the next morning, although the first few times you make the bacon you could find yourself eating it all rather than putting a couple of pieces in a Ziplock Baggie for overnight storage in your refrigerator.
Let's assume you, or you and your guest, didn't eat all of the bacon you prepared yesterday, and hoepfully you also still have some of the grated cheese leftover from that 2 1/2 pound bag of Mexican Cheese from Costco (or in your early stages of Q-C C, 8 ounce name-brand bag of grated cheese from Target or Ralph's). As long as you added flour tortillas (or Mission Carb Balance flour tortillas if you want to go all Atkins Diet on your ass) to your shopping list, you can enjoy another Quick-Clean breakfast.
The first time I saw someone order a cheese quesadilla for a child at a Mexican restaurant, I thought it was a good way for parents to enjoy a spicy meal while the kid played with her relatively non-messy food. Eventually, like most parents, I tasted the parts left behind by my own kids and learned it was pretty tasty.
I notice that many adults now order quesadillas for themselves, which seems like such a joke when you consider the restaurant mark-up and the ease of assembly at home.
So, just in case you have been amazed by the intricate production of making a quesadilla, here it goes:
Take the tortilla and lay it on a plate the same shape as the tortilla (presumably round). Put some grated cheese on the tortilla and fold it over. Microwave for about 30 seconds, and you have a cheese quesadilla.
To make a bacon quesadilla, crumble your leftover bacon in with the grated cheese before folding the tortilla and then microwave it. With the low carb tortilla, this makes an excellent Atkins-friendly meal with Quick-Cleanup.
The possibilities for variations are endless. Adding leftover hot sauce from your last Taco Bell take-out, and you have a spicy quesadilla. Any extra meat you have laying around makes a pretty good addition to the quesadilla that's nutritious and easy cleanup.
As you will begin to infer, Quick-Clean Cuisine cooking tends to be low carb and not particularly worried about fat. That is based on my belief that fat and cholesterol in the diet are not nearly as fattening as sugar. I use the Atkins Diet way of looking at carbs, which is that dietary fiber and even alcohol doesn't count as carbs, as long as you don't overdo the alcohol or cheat with other carbs. You'll find that keeping your carb count under 80 a day (or even 40 for that matter) isn't that difficult if you shop right, and that will result in maintaining weight. Below 40 carbs a day on a consistent basis should lead to weight loss regardless of how much protein and fat you eat. Check out Atkins.com for more info on how to count carbs.
Using a regular tortilla costs 1/4 to 1/2 as much as a low carb tortilla, and it only adds about 20 extra carbs. Over the course of a day, adding regular bread here and there easily puts you over 80 carbs, but having a regular tortilla here or a dinner roll there won't blow it up. Then again, even one oatmeal cookie, no matter how nutritious it may seem, will...especially if, like me, you eat a half dozen cookies after tasting one.
Let's assume you, or you and your guest, didn't eat all of the bacon you prepared yesterday, and hoepfully you also still have some of the grated cheese leftover from that 2 1/2 pound bag of Mexican Cheese from Costco (or in your early stages of Q-C C, 8 ounce name-brand bag of grated cheese from Target or Ralph's). As long as you added flour tortillas (or Mission Carb Balance flour tortillas if you want to go all Atkins Diet on your ass) to your shopping list, you can enjoy another Quick-Clean breakfast.
The first time I saw someone order a cheese quesadilla for a child at a Mexican restaurant, I thought it was a good way for parents to enjoy a spicy meal while the kid played with her relatively non-messy food. Eventually, like most parents, I tasted the parts left behind by my own kids and learned it was pretty tasty.
I notice that many adults now order quesadillas for themselves, which seems like such a joke when you consider the restaurant mark-up and the ease of assembly at home.
So, just in case you have been amazed by the intricate production of making a quesadilla, here it goes:
Take the tortilla and lay it on a plate the same shape as the tortilla (presumably round). Put some grated cheese on the tortilla and fold it over. Microwave for about 30 seconds, and you have a cheese quesadilla.
To make a bacon quesadilla, crumble your leftover bacon in with the grated cheese before folding the tortilla and then microwave it. With the low carb tortilla, this makes an excellent Atkins-friendly meal with Quick-Cleanup.
The possibilities for variations are endless. Adding leftover hot sauce from your last Taco Bell take-out, and you have a spicy quesadilla. Any extra meat you have laying around makes a pretty good addition to the quesadilla that's nutritious and easy cleanup.
As you will begin to infer, Quick-Clean Cuisine cooking tends to be low carb and not particularly worried about fat. That is based on my belief that fat and cholesterol in the diet are not nearly as fattening as sugar. I use the Atkins Diet way of looking at carbs, which is that dietary fiber and even alcohol doesn't count as carbs, as long as you don't overdo the alcohol or cheat with other carbs. You'll find that keeping your carb count under 80 a day (or even 40 for that matter) isn't that difficult if you shop right, and that will result in maintaining weight. Below 40 carbs a day on a consistent basis should lead to weight loss regardless of how much protein and fat you eat. Check out Atkins.com for more info on how to count carbs.
Using a regular tortilla costs 1/4 to 1/2 as much as a low carb tortilla, and it only adds about 20 extra carbs. Over the course of a day, adding regular bread here and there easily puts you over 80 carbs, but having a regular tortilla here or a dinner roll there won't blow it up. Then again, even one oatmeal cookie, no matter how nutritious it may seem, will...especially if, like me, you eat a half dozen cookies after tasting one.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Bacon and Eggs
I know what you're thinking.
Bacon and eggs are about as basic as it gets.
Well, that's what this blog is about. Anyone can use these techniques, but I would guess it will mostly help that round headed kid living on her own for the first time. So it is about basics, and then building on them. If you already know this stuff, go to the head of the class and gloat, but soon the novice will become the master too.
If you've been frying pork bacon in a pan, then you've been dealing with a lot of splattered grease on your stovetop and a frying pan full of residual fat. Not only do you have to clean the greasy pan, you have to get rid of the leftover fat (unless you want to store it to use later as some sort of rancid, free-radical-loaded flavor enhancer, which I definitely don't recommend) by pouring it into an old soup can or some other disposable receptical that sooner or later you'll spill, making an even bigger mess. And if you pour that fat down the sink, you'll soon have the nasty task of unclogging your drain or paying a plumber to do so.
It's not a big breakthrough to cook bacon in a microwave between paper towels on a plate. It was big news in the '70s, but most cooks still insist on the stovetop method to really cook bacon right.
When I was a kid, I remember my mom frying up bacon, and it always smelled great. But even though she was an amazing cook, I wouldn't eat an entire slice of bacon. I only ate the lean part, leaving the fat on my plate or giving it to my dog Alvin. Mom was a woman who, having been born and raised on a farm and knowing the hardships of earlier years firsthand, truly appreciated the modern conveniences. She turned me on to turkey bacon cooked in a microwave in the 1980s, and it has become a staple in our household ever since.
Turkey bacon has been processed to look like traditional bacon, with wavy white and salmon-colored stripes, but those aren't ribbons of fat. Turkey bacon has the same taste and texture throughout. For bacon purists, I guess the differences make turkey an inferior option, but to me it is better. It still has that smoked flavor, and with 50% less fat, it creates less of a mess. Instead of dealing with the leftover oil, you just throw away the paper towels and use the plate for your breakfast. Warning: the plate will be very hot when it first comes out of the microwave.
The directions for cooking turkey bacon are simple. Take two full-sized paper towels off a roll, and lay them across a microwave safe glass plate. Put 6 to 8 pieces of turkey bacon between the paper towels on the plate, with 1 or 2 pieces perpendicular to the others so that the plate is full. Cook for about a minute per piece for a low powered microwave oven, or maybe 45 seconds for a higher powered one. I've found that different packages of bacon cook at different speeds, so you need to always monitor your times based on the thickness of the bacon strips and microwave strength. Remember, you can always put it back in the microwave if it is underdone, but you can't unburn it. If you're like me, of course, you like the burned bacon too.
Why cook 6 to 8 pieces of bacon if you only eat 1 to 3 in a meal? Leftover bacon can be used for a BLTs, club sandwiches, bacon and cheese quesadillas, as garnish on a hamburger, or along with your eggs on another day. It will last a couple of days in the refrigerator, and it takes about the same amount of time to fix a full plate of bacon as a half plate.
If you think I spent a long time describing how to cook bacon in a microwave, wait until you read this riveting description of how to make buttered toast. Just kidding.
Jumping to scrambled eggs, the key to quick clean-up is in the pan. Instead of scrambling eggs in a bowl, which leaves you with a bowl that needs to be cleaned immediately to avoid the egg becoming an enamel-like coating, just break the eggs into the frying pan.
If you don't know how to crack eggs, the first batch will be messy, so you might want to practice by putting a small frying pan in the sink. Tap the egg against the edge of the pan until it cracks, then use pry open the shell without submerging your thumbs in the yoke. With practice, you can do it with one hand, and eventually one in each hand if you want to add a little flair. Always crack eggs with a trash bag nearby in which to drop your eggshells as they're emptied. Otherwise, you have to clean them up later.
But, you may ask, shouldn't the butter be melted in the pan first?
No. Don't use butter.
When should the milk or cream be added?
Don't use those either.
Instead, use grated cheese, which you can just throw in the pan with the eggs before turning on the burner. Acording to my research, cheese is a dairy product, too. I like the Mexican Cheese blend from Costco, but grated cheddar or whatever kind you like should work fine. And need I add, don't grate the cheese yourself. This would require opening and resealing a block of cheese, getting a grater and bowl dirty, and save you all of about 2 cents per serving. Buy it pre-grated. Life is too short as it is.
You want to have about 1/3 as much cheese as eggs in the pan, but this isn't rocket science. If you put in too much or too little cheese, it still tastes pretty good, and you will soon figure out what works for you. Turn on the stove top. At this point, you can add pepper if you like, but it doesn't need salt, because the cheese has enough salt in it to flavor the eggs. You can beat the eggs a bit to get them to a relatively even consistency, but you can actually leave them for a half minute or so while you butter your toast or pour a cup of coffee before returning to stirring. At the end is when you want to keep whipping them in order to keep them from being clumpy. With the cheese rather than milk, you'll find it easier to reach a nice consistency that isn't dried out.
Put your eggs, bacon and toast on the plate you used for cooking the bacon. The plate will be hot, so if the phone rings, your eggs will stay warm. Of course, it probably would not be good form to ask your guests to eat off your plate with you, so splurge and give guests their own fresh plate.
In the end, you will be cleaning at least one less plate, one less bowl and while you still have silverware and a frying pan, you will find the frying pan much easier to clean after this breakfast than with the traditional method.
I find making more than 5 or 6 eggs at a time results in it taking a really long time to cook, so even if you have guests, break it into batches no bigger than that size. Leftover eggs aren't in the same league with leftover bacon, so only cook as much as you plan to eat at that sitting.
Bacon and eggs are about as basic as it gets.
Well, that's what this blog is about. Anyone can use these techniques, but I would guess it will mostly help that round headed kid living on her own for the first time. So it is about basics, and then building on them. If you already know this stuff, go to the head of the class and gloat, but soon the novice will become the master too.
If you've been frying pork bacon in a pan, then you've been dealing with a lot of splattered grease on your stovetop and a frying pan full of residual fat. Not only do you have to clean the greasy pan, you have to get rid of the leftover fat (unless you want to store it to use later as some sort of rancid, free-radical-loaded flavor enhancer, which I definitely don't recommend) by pouring it into an old soup can or some other disposable receptical that sooner or later you'll spill, making an even bigger mess. And if you pour that fat down the sink, you'll soon have the nasty task of unclogging your drain or paying a plumber to do so.
It's not a big breakthrough to cook bacon in a microwave between paper towels on a plate. It was big news in the '70s, but most cooks still insist on the stovetop method to really cook bacon right.
When I was a kid, I remember my mom frying up bacon, and it always smelled great. But even though she was an amazing cook, I wouldn't eat an entire slice of bacon. I only ate the lean part, leaving the fat on my plate or giving it to my dog Alvin. Mom was a woman who, having been born and raised on a farm and knowing the hardships of earlier years firsthand, truly appreciated the modern conveniences. She turned me on to turkey bacon cooked in a microwave in the 1980s, and it has become a staple in our household ever since.
Turkey bacon has been processed to look like traditional bacon, with wavy white and salmon-colored stripes, but those aren't ribbons of fat. Turkey bacon has the same taste and texture throughout. For bacon purists, I guess the differences make turkey an inferior option, but to me it is better. It still has that smoked flavor, and with 50% less fat, it creates less of a mess. Instead of dealing with the leftover oil, you just throw away the paper towels and use the plate for your breakfast. Warning: the plate will be very hot when it first comes out of the microwave.
The directions for cooking turkey bacon are simple. Take two full-sized paper towels off a roll, and lay them across a microwave safe glass plate. Put 6 to 8 pieces of turkey bacon between the paper towels on the plate, with 1 or 2 pieces perpendicular to the others so that the plate is full. Cook for about a minute per piece for a low powered microwave oven, or maybe 45 seconds for a higher powered one. I've found that different packages of bacon cook at different speeds, so you need to always monitor your times based on the thickness of the bacon strips and microwave strength. Remember, you can always put it back in the microwave if it is underdone, but you can't unburn it. If you're like me, of course, you like the burned bacon too.
Why cook 6 to 8 pieces of bacon if you only eat 1 to 3 in a meal? Leftover bacon can be used for a BLTs, club sandwiches, bacon and cheese quesadillas, as garnish on a hamburger, or along with your eggs on another day. It will last a couple of days in the refrigerator, and it takes about the same amount of time to fix a full plate of bacon as a half plate.
If you think I spent a long time describing how to cook bacon in a microwave, wait until you read this riveting description of how to make buttered toast. Just kidding.
Jumping to scrambled eggs, the key to quick clean-up is in the pan. Instead of scrambling eggs in a bowl, which leaves you with a bowl that needs to be cleaned immediately to avoid the egg becoming an enamel-like coating, just break the eggs into the frying pan.
If you don't know how to crack eggs, the first batch will be messy, so you might want to practice by putting a small frying pan in the sink. Tap the egg against the edge of the pan until it cracks, then use pry open the shell without submerging your thumbs in the yoke. With practice, you can do it with one hand, and eventually one in each hand if you want to add a little flair. Always crack eggs with a trash bag nearby in which to drop your eggshells as they're emptied. Otherwise, you have to clean them up later.
But, you may ask, shouldn't the butter be melted in the pan first?
No. Don't use butter.
When should the milk or cream be added?
Don't use those either.
Instead, use grated cheese, which you can just throw in the pan with the eggs before turning on the burner. Acording to my research, cheese is a dairy product, too. I like the Mexican Cheese blend from Costco, but grated cheddar or whatever kind you like should work fine. And need I add, don't grate the cheese yourself. This would require opening and resealing a block of cheese, getting a grater and bowl dirty, and save you all of about 2 cents per serving. Buy it pre-grated. Life is too short as it is.
You want to have about 1/3 as much cheese as eggs in the pan, but this isn't rocket science. If you put in too much or too little cheese, it still tastes pretty good, and you will soon figure out what works for you. Turn on the stove top. At this point, you can add pepper if you like, but it doesn't need salt, because the cheese has enough salt in it to flavor the eggs. You can beat the eggs a bit to get them to a relatively even consistency, but you can actually leave them for a half minute or so while you butter your toast or pour a cup of coffee before returning to stirring. At the end is when you want to keep whipping them in order to keep them from being clumpy. With the cheese rather than milk, you'll find it easier to reach a nice consistency that isn't dried out.
Put your eggs, bacon and toast on the plate you used for cooking the bacon. The plate will be hot, so if the phone rings, your eggs will stay warm. Of course, it probably would not be good form to ask your guests to eat off your plate with you, so splurge and give guests their own fresh plate.
In the end, you will be cleaning at least one less plate, one less bowl and while you still have silverware and a frying pan, you will find the frying pan much easier to clean after this breakfast than with the traditional method.
I find making more than 5 or 6 eggs at a time results in it taking a really long time to cook, so even if you have guests, break it into batches no bigger than that size. Leftover eggs aren't in the same league with leftover bacon, so only cook as much as you plan to eat at that sitting.
What is Quick-Clean Cuisine?
 |
| Chef Wes with Apprentice Amy |
That's why dining out has become so popular with the new generation raised in the casual affluence of the post-Reagan era. They would find it hard to believe that their parents or grandparents didn't go out to eat more than once a week, if that, when they were young.
This is not a blog about how lucky we are to live in the long-dreamed about golden age of humanity or even an attempt to convince you that is a true statement.
Rather, it is simply a method of recording recipes I've developed for tasty, healthy and inexpensive meals that can be prepared easily and require less clean-up time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)