zuchinno's Cook Bookie!

By Popular demand I bring to you:
:hungry:My Cook Bookie!:hungry:
This will come in Installments when I have time. I made this bookie for my life after banding and brought it to my dietitian and she was pretty impressed. The point of this bookie is to spice up the old standard of protein, some veg and then a small carb.
The way I do this is with combinations of spices, rubs, and lowfat marinades that tenderize meat and make veggies savory and delicious.
~enjoy~

No gravy, no problem!
Some people with bands really have problems chokin' down that chicken and steak but don't like legs and thighs.
The easy solution is soak the heck out of that breast or steak and give it some extra
flavor too!
My personal suggestion is go to your local Safeway and check to see if you can get one of these babies:

They're called meat injectors and they run from $2-20 (depending on where you buy).
These get marinades right to the middle of the meat, making it soft, juicy and flavorful.

Marinades:

Simple Steak Marinade
(pts, pt: Parts)
I got this one from my grandmother and it's quite simple.
3pts Cooking Sherry
1 pt Honey
5 pts Low Sodium Soy Sauce

The longer the better is how this marinade works. My grandmother gets one of those tough, lean, thin flank steaks and puts it in the marinade for about 1 or 2 days. When she has time, she puts a bunch of them in the freezer in gallon ziplock bags, so they can be defrosted and cooked in about 15 minutes. (They're even softer this way).
They come out soft, easy, and lowfat.

A great accompaniment for this is sliced mushrooms sauteed in some nonstick cooking spray and a little soy sauce.


Lemon Garlic Marinade

This one is really good for Chicken.
If you're using the meat injector, you'll wanna substitute minced garlic for garlic salt or garlic powder.

5 pts lemon juice
1 pt minced garlic (can be gotten by the jar at your local grocer)
Dash of salt (or Lawrey's seasoned salt)
Dash of ground black pepper


This is a pretty simple recipe and more flavors can be added to it depending on what you're going for.
Popular options:
~Minced Cilantro (for a fresh, invigorating tinge, good for halibut or cod)
~Minced Basil or parsely (Good for chicken)
~Paprika (for some spice! also good for fish)

This is a really versatile marinade. It's the leanest and I've used variations of it on shrimp, chicken, and fish and it's just wonderful.

Brine
Just because... If you just want some good old fashioned chicken, but you want it to be softer, this is how you do it:

10-15 pts Cold Water
1 pt Salt
2 pts Sugar dissolved in a small amount of hot water.

*Note: You can add whatever spices you want to this and it'll probably be pretty good. Use your imagination!

Rinse off your meat. Get yourself a gallon ziplock bag, and put the brine in. Leave it from 4-24 hrs.


Rubs:

Blackened Rub
This can be bought in stores in your spice section, or at cajungrocer.com (you can also get the injector there, but it's expensive). There are also a lot of marinades there as well.

But here's a recipe for it if you wanna go super authentic:

1 tablespoon Paprika
2 1/2 tablespoons Salt
1 tablespoon Onion powder
1 tablespoon Garlic powder
1 tablespoon Cayenne pepper
3/4 tablespoon White pepper
3/4 tablespoon Black pepper
1/2 tablespoon Thyme
1/2 tablespoon Oregano
1/4 tablespoon Sage

To properly blacken something, you're gonna have a few methods you can take.
In any case, you should take a heavy ladle, meat tenderizing hammer... I dunno, a brick or something, and your boneless, skinless chicken breast and pound that sucker flat as possible. This reduces cooking time.

*Note: For extra tenderness, brine first or mix some water and the blackened spice and inject it after you've pounded the heck out of it.

Alright, now, for lower fat cooking, rub the blackened stuff on and broil until done. You can also pan blacken if you have a cast-iron skillet but it involves a lot of olive oil and butter for the same results as broiling.

So here are some absolutely delicious veggie ideas:

Salads:

Authentic Greek Salad
BC Hothouse cucumber, diced (aka english cucumber)
1/2 Tomato, diced
1/4 Onion, diced
Fat Free Feta, diced or crumbled
Kalmata Olives (pitted)

Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing, (use sparingly!)
Store-bought,
or combine:
1 pt Olive Oil&
1 pt lemon juice
3 pts balsamic vinegar
1 pt minced garlic
dash of salt
dash of ground pepper
Now combine it all, yum!

Ethiopian Tomato Salad

1 Firm tomato, diced
1/5 red onion, diced
(optional) diced jalapeño, to taste
1 tbsp lemon juice
black pepper, dash
salt to taste
Chill and serve cold. This salad actually takes more calories to digest than it gives. Food for thought.

My Yia Yia's Yummy Salad!

Spring Mix Red and Green Bag Lettuce
1/4 Dice/Minced Red Onion
1/2 Diced or Wedged Tomato
1/4-1/2 Diced Avocado
Crumbled Lowfat Feta

Red Wide Vinaigrette Dressing (Use Sparingly!!!) (I like wishbone, and now they havea salad spritzer version of this and it's perfect)

Caesar Salad

I modified this one from my mom's more fattening version.

Hearts of Romaine, washed and ripped up
Splash of Lemon Juice
Shake of Lowfat Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Ground black pepper to taste
Optional: Diced precooked chicken breast (can be bought in lunch-meat section of grocer)
Toss all of these together (great for lunch) and then drizzle on a small amount of Cardini's Low-fat Caesar dressing. Because of the lemon juice, very little dressing is required. One of the reasons that this is good for lunch is because you can put it all in a tupperware container and the lemon juice and salt act as natural preservatives. That way, you can just put a little dressing in a mini ziplock bag and rest it on top of the salad in the container and add it when you eat.

Bruschetta without the Bread

This one's a really great Italian classic.
1 Diced Tomato
2 tsp Minced Garlic
1/4 Cup freshly minced basil
4 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp olive oil (optional, really)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp Lowfat parmesan cheese

Combine and let sit 1/2 an hour in fridge. Dust with a little more Parmesan cheese and serve.


Hearts of Palm and Tomato Salad

Thisis another one from my mom. This one is a liiiittle rich, so just go easy on the dressing, but I just had to include it since it's SO yummy.

1 Tomato, cut into wedges, which are cut in half
2-3 Hearts of Palm cut into 1/2 inch slices
Fat Free Ranch Dressing

Remember that dressings and sauces make things go down faster so use as little as possible!

Marinated Tomato Salad

Use the balsamic vinaigrette and marinate some tomato slices and maybe a couple of raw onion rings. Remove from marinade, add some chopped basil and serve with a shaving of mozzarella cheese. Yum!


Steamed:

Succotash

1 can of corn
1/4-1/2 Bag of frozen lima beans

Put the frozen lima beans in the bottom of a partially covered microwavable tupperware dish with some water. Nuke for 3 minutes, add corn, nuke 2 more.
Drain most of the water and add a small amount of
butter or margarine, and
Lawrey's Seasoned Salt and
Ground Black Pepper to taste.

Squash me!

1 pt White or Yellow Onion in rings
3 pt Sliced Yellow Squash

Boil onions for 8 minutes and then add squash and boil until tender in water. When done strain out water and add a very sparing (it's succulent already) amount of butter or margarine, and
Lawrey's Seasoned Salt and
Ground Black Pepper to taste.

This is a section where I will give a versatile array of combination dishes, and sides that you can try out to see if they go together:

Shish-kabobs

Make Lemon Garlic marinade or get some Lawrey's Lemon Garlic 10 minute marinade.
Caution! This makes a LOT of food, so be sure to have company or your family digging in.

Cherry Tomatoes
Green Bell Pepper cored and cut into ~1inch squares
Large Yellow onion cut into wedges and separated by layer
1 Kielbasa Sausage sliced into 1/2 inch slices
Boneless skinless Chicken Breast, cut into 1 inch pieces
Steak Cut into 1 inch pieces
Raw Whole White Mushrooms with the stems trimmed off

Put all of the veggies into one gallon bag and put in marinade and shake to coat. Do the same with the meats. marinate over night or as little as 1/2 an hour. The longer the better.
Then, dump all of it into a large dish and put onto skewers.
These can be broiled in a broiler pan until done, or grilled on a barbecue. Be sure to turn them over regularly.
Some choose to serve on a bed of rice, but this is optional.
This is a very lean and flavorful dish and is great for company.


Coming Soon:
Lamb Kabobs
Low-fat Tzatziki (for those who want to indulge!)
Savory Sauteed Mushrooms
Marinated Tuna
Jerk Chicken on a Bed of Black Beans and Rice
Lemon Pilaf
The perfect Halibut
Who are you callin' shrimp?

This is a section where I talk about the tools you can use to make leaner cooking!

Bamboo Steamer
A bamboo steamer is one of Asia's best ways of keeping healthy. A lot of the breads from most east Asian countries use steaming instead of baking as a cooking method and therefore require fewer fats and oils to keep food and bakes goods soft. In addition, foods retain more nutrients as well as flavor when cooked in this way.

These can be bought for any price between $7-30. They ban be used to cook just about anything by placing them in a pan, pot, or wok, that has a shallow pool of water in it, and heat it up!

Oster Steamer
For a little more money, $30-50, you can get a western version of the bamboo steamer. It does about the same thing, but comes with a handy little book on cooking all sorts of stuff you'd never imagined in it. I really like this oe for making veggies and steaming stuff like shrimp.


Turbo-Broiler
This baby makes some succulent, tender meat. For those of you who have some real problems choking stuff down, and regularly cook whole chickens for your family, I suggest this. You can put all sorts of spices in it and they will be soaked up.
If you get a good deal, it can be for around $30-100.


Crock Pot
This is a great way to make meats soft by stewing or corning, such as corned beef. It makes very very soft meat and is also a great, low fat way of cooking. These can be gotten for $15-50 depending on where you shop and how fancy you wanna go.


George Forman Type Grill
What can say but IT CUTS OUT THE FAT!
Haha, it's true though, and it's fast and convenient, especially if it's winter and you can't fire up the BBQ.
These can be bought for anywhere between $30-100 depending on how fancy you wanna go, and where you shop.

Three words.....yum, yum, yum!

Yep! As yummy as possible! I like the whole quality over quantity thing. Just you wait 'til I break out the Chinese dumpling recipes too! They're lean and SO flavorful.

I am interested and want to read more!

A BIG BAND THANK YOU :hungry: