Baba Ganoush Is Bland

04/14/17 241.2 lbs.

I eat Greek. I like Greek. Heck, I Couillon-study Koine Greek. Greek food is robust, with strong, distinct flavors...except for Baba Ganoush. It's frightfully bland, but it is not impossible to eat.  It doesn't matter how much my mother like this  or that seasoned eggplant, it's eggplant, absorber of all seasonings, stronger than your spice rack.  This is why you put sauce on top, not in.

But I still eat it, and in spite the bland, the eggplant often becomes bitter. And I am not baking much right now, so, I would rather sauteed.

Last Sunday, I pulled out 2 eggplants, 2 bell peppers, an onion, a whole stick of butter, with ranch powder seasoning--it was delicious. Lots and lots of butter. Would have made a wonderful blended Baba Ganoush...but I wanted to try again, with less butter...and blend it down, this time.

Mother also grows a lot of spices, like
Pineapple Sage, Lemon Basil, Lavender, Catnip, etc. I dehydrated some leftovers, and blended them. It came out to about 3 tablespoons.

This week, that blend was put upon 8 button mushrooms, 2 eggplants, teaspoon of the Tony's, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt, with half the butter--4 tbsp.--and an onion.

Half blended, on top of a pork chop.

Mom said that it was strong, and a good thing to add it to the bland-cooked pork chop. Yay for strong.

Brother said I made a Baigan Choka. But he said mine was bland. Go figure, he works in Trinidad.  Needed more pepper and garlic. 

But it was wonderful on the Pork Chop. 

Let's Eat!

Seasoning Instead of Breading: Pork Chops

03/31/2017 245 lbs

Being part of large Cajun families means that everyone "talks shop" and "talks food". It's the biggest pastime, and honestly, sometimes disputes erupt over who does which dish best. (Seriously, don't look up "man stabs over food louisiana".)

At the last crawfish boil (y'all, I will GAIN weight for crawfish), one of the cousins showed off his new Cajun-made Hibachi grills.  Which is sweet looking, but I won't buy one until I have a proper place to store it. Yes Hibachi conversations in the middle of a Crawfish boil. Our blood, sweat, and tears is food.

But wait, there's more:


He mentioned in passing that frying pork chops in peanut oil and breading it with only the seasoning, not the corn meal, has it fly off the serving table near as fast as you put it out.

And I bought 9 pork chops, on sale. But I wanted to crockpot them.

So, I oiled the inside of the crockpot with peanut oil, and oiled both sides of some wax paper with peanut oil...and then seasoned the heck out of the chops. It takes as much oil as it takes to sufficiently coat it, most likely about 6 tbsp.

Seasoning mix:

Soul seasoning (A salt, sugar, garlic, red pepper, black pepper, paprika blend, so yes, you can make your own, or buy a genuinely Cajun blend): 1 heaping tbsp (close to 1 1/2 tbsp)
Chilli powder: 1 heaping tbsp (close to 1 1/4 tbsp)
Curry powder:  1 heaping tbsp (close to 2 tbsp)
Thyme powder: 1 scant tbsp (means it is just at or just shy of 1 tbsp)

This coats about 3 chops.

Place in Ziploc, seal, shake.
Open, place in pork chop, seal, shake. Make sure it's covered completely.
Take out pork chop, put 2 in bottom of crockpot, place oiled wax paper on top. Repeat until 6 are in the pot.
I covered it with an oiled wax paper, to keep moisture close.
Turn on low for 4-6 hours, and ignore.

For the last 3, I skipped the Thyme and used some Isagenix Greens, which should mellow it out, a bit, because the seasoning is strong, the way I like it. It comes out dark and delicious.

Let's eat!

Avacado Salad Dressing

03/21/17 247.6 lbs 

There is a dearth of creamy yet really healthy options for a salad dressing.  Oil and vinegar is good, don't get me wrong, but these diet ranch or caesar dressings are a joke. Fat free? Let's add sugar! Sugar free? Let's add questionable sources of fat. So many folks are disgusted enough with it to go as far as to make their own dressings.

But I wasn't looking for dressings when I came across this avacado-based dressing. Unfortunately, for me, I am allergic to Cilantro. Very unfortunate, because the best thing to put the soapy tasting green in is avocados, where it adds a crisp snap to the mushy concoction. I love it in guacamole. So, I save the risk of blistering myself for that rare time I am out, not in my daily home recipes.

I chose dill, instead.  Good flavor, love pickles, and the second batch of burgers, frozen for work lunches were already a success with some dilly goodness in them.

My version:

2 small avacados
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp dill
2 tsp olive oil
1 serving size container of Chobani plain Greek yogurt
3 tbsp  of fairlife whole milk
3 tbsp lowfat milk
1/2 tsp Tony Zachery's seasoning
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Blended, not cooked.

The consistency is about the same as pudding, like this. More milk, less yogurt works to fix that.

I also can see how buttermilk (the link's modification on a previous verson) would overpower this because I taste that it has milk products in it. But it was pleasant and did not overpower the avacado's taste.

We ate a good 3rd of this over shrimp omelettes on a bed of raw salad greens, on Sunday, and then made chicken salad with the remaining half of a rotisserie chicken and the rest of last week's eggs (about 10). That needed a little more Tony's to balance out the bland of the eggs and was better the second day, than the first. Overall, worth trying another iteration of this, again and again, until I find my ideal must-have.

Yes, the chicken salad is mildly green.

Let's eat!

Guiness Shepard's Pie

03/20/17 249.8 lbs

A Shepherd's pie is a mainstay of the Irish diet. As well as being a quarter Cajun, I have a lot of the British Isles in my ancestry--including Irish. More importantly, I am very fond of potatos, although I don't eat much of them anymore  (high carb, starchy).

But a Shepard's Pie is coated in buttery potatoy goodness...so I have avoided it for years, due to that.

That is, until I came across a Guiness Shepard's Pie. Parsnips and Carrots and Potatoes, oh my! Just mentioning this beast in passing got the demand for it going. And while I eat with some care, it is not best to deny everything, all the time.

And so the search for alternatives began:
and was found in MOAR PARSNIPS! ALL THE PARSNIPS!


And the Cajun noticed this one with a roux.


So, what did I actually do for my blend?

1 lb lean ground beef
1 lb button mushrooms, quartered
3 medium carrots, chopped
3 large stalks celery, chopped
1 bellpepper,chopped
3 medium parsnips, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tsp powdered thyme
1 tsp Tony Czachary's
1/2 tap garlic powder
1 bay leaf
1 bottle Guinness
2 teaspoons of garlic, minced

Soak all but the beef in the beer overnight. Partially cook the beef before tossing in the veggies, and cook down a bit. Add in 1 scoop (2-3 tbsp) browned coconut flour, for a "roux", right after pulling out the bay leaf, before layering in a rectangular pan. (Of course, somwthing to prevent sticking.)

Topping:

2 large, 1 medium Russet, peeled,  and halved
2 medium parsnips
Shake or two of Tony's
Bottle of water

Boil it, then:

8 tablespoons butter
Splash of milk (3 tbsp?)
1 bundle of scallions, green only.

Mix, then:

Light sprinkle of shreaded cheddar...maybe an 8th of a cup.

Over a regular rectangular pan, the potato covers the top of the rest about an average depth of 1/2 an inch.

The flavor was perfect. The only problem is that there was a hair too much liquid in the end result, but that would be easily remedied by dehydrating the veggies the day before, no more than 8 hours. I prefer the full bottle of beer, and do not want to cut that down. That cuts out the flavor.


Putting it in Lose It!, dividing it into 6 servings (because folks overeat), it still only comes in at 520 calories. That's reasonable for the main meal. Calories are offset by decent root veggie fibers.

And it is decently blanced: carbs, fats, and protein.  We don't need to cut out all carbs, but cut back on the overdoing the carbs.

Let's eat!

03/19/17 251.6 lbs

This week, gastronomically, was a hellish week. Had an increase in calories for a head cold that wouldn't quit, but in spite of that, I was down to 245.8 lbs by Friday morning.  That is until 2 birthday parties, a wedding, and a crawfish boil all popped up on the same weekend.

So, as you can see, I weighed in at 251.6. That was AFTER "the morning constitutional". Some of this is water weight, due to high salt content. Some of it is excess food. But it is possible that some will become fat stored. Let's see how long it takes to get it back off.

The "healthiest" things I ate was one, just one of my shakes. I missed the other 3, dearly. The other was this baby:

(raaspberry tea with chia seeds)

It's not quite food or drink. It's a quick snack on a busy day. The ingredients  are decent.

Of course, the sugar content is a hair higher than I want regularly, but on a totally messed up week, this is fine.

Zucchini...Butter....Wha?

03/16/17 248.2 lbs.

A typica breakfast has a lot of carbs in it, and if you are going to eat carbs, that's the best time to eat them. But, honestly, Americans eat too much carbs, and not enough proteins.

Cajuns are worse: they double down on both.

Now, breakfast isn't what we are known for. It's not where we sparkle. But then, the glitter is best left for Butbon Street. Don't want it sticking to every conceivable surface in my house. Today, breakfast is a must. I miss hash browns: oily, greasy, frankly-no-flavor-hash-browns. In order to eat healthier, some forms of fats and easy high-volume carbs need to go the way of the Dodo, so either sacrifices or substitutions must be made.

Cheese is not out,  yet. Nor is butter. But pretty much any conventional deep frying oil is: it tastes like crud in large amounts (adding little tastebud-value to a plain potato that sucks too much of it in).

Something also had to replace the potato. And then I stumbled into this gem: things to do with zuchhini butter.


A lot to do with one base, no? But still no hashbrown recipe, so I will have to wing it, a bit. That, and I never follow the actual recipe anyway.

So, a comparison:
Calories in 1 medium zucchini, vs. 1 small potato. That is a 2 inch diameter potato. A medium zucchini is about 2 inches in diameter, but 2-3 times that size. Both veggies are full of fluid, but a potato gives up it's liquid a little more easily than a zucchini does, so you are eating far more potato, ounce vs. ounce.

But let's go ahead and do the math:

134×2.5=335 calories, or nearly 10x the calories of the zucchini! It leaves you no room for other foods added especially in a side or a snack.


So, what did I use to season the 4 shreaded zucchini?

Before cooking it down:
3 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp thyme
1 tsp dill
1 tsp "Soul Seasoning" (specific brand from Save-a-lot, you can use any pepper/salt blend you like)
1 whole stick of butter.

Then I cooked it down and strained it.  4 zucchinis comes out to about 3-3 1/2 cups.

Got 2 small mason jars of juice out if it, in a strainer, which was more than half the butter, right back out.

 This is only the halfway mark.  As the original recipe shows, and the link of ideas as well, this stuff is versatile and can be put away, to use another day, but I wanted this done in 1 shot.

I remember from childhood watching some Jewish family make Latkes for Passover Seder. I think I saw it on Reading Rainbow, of all things. (Hey, I was young.) What I remeber is that they used eggs in these hashbrowns, along with some Mediterranean seasonings.

So, with 2 eggs and half a cup of cheese mixed in, time to put them on the panini grill, with a spritz of coconut oil, to grease the metal plates.

First ones weren't easy to keep together. You need the top to reach a dark caramel color before flipping them over, and take them off once done with the second, on my machine around 2 minutes each side.

This made 8 zucchini hashbrowns, calories around 114 apiece. And guys, this was extremely rich, with a hashbrown style crust and an ooey gooey center, and oh, so decadent. Well worth scraping zucchini against a grater for 10-15 minutes.  If you have a processor, use it. Wrists were tired after this.

But if that takes too long, use spaghetti squash.  In fact, I intend to try this next. I expect it to come out in between potatos and zucchini, as it is more fiberous.

Let's eat!

Combatting Burger Shrinkage

3/12/17 249.6 lbs

When we eat burgers, they are overwhelmingly not something we cook.  Most fast food and even many resturaunt burgers use wheat or soy as a binder. Heck, you cannot 100% trust grocer's ground meat, in many cases.

The safest way to fix this is to buy a solid chunk of meat, and make "grind meat" yourself. I eventually will, once I find my old meat grinder (packed away). The next best is to choose a grocer that grinds their own meat, that you trust (mostly local).

Yeah, it's disturbing, but let's be realistic: hot dogs, chicken nuggets,  vienna sausage, potted meat, they are no different, and that's the staple of the emergency diet. So many things to avoid, that it makes your head spin.

But other than foreign objects, the next biggest thing is fat content. Even if you are not worried about counting claories,  or overeating, high fat content in burger meat shrinks the the burgers down. It sucks.

So, what to do with 73% ground meat sale and nearly 2 pounds of dehydrated carrots?

Test the shrink rate with a panini-style grill. That, or a grill iron, something to keep the meat at least as flat as the shape you choose for it because homemade burgers like to become domed hockeypucks.

So:

2 lbs carrot shreads, dehydrated, ground
5 lbs ground meat
2 Tbsp. steak seasoning
4 Tbsp. curry powder

I made oval shaped patties, to better fit nice, fiberously dense loaf bread (in this case Ezekiel bread, to avoid wheat), and my tiny grill.

So, comparison time:

5 burgers

fits the space of 4 raw.

A little less than an inch thick

was once about 1&1/4 inch thick.

From the picture up at the top, the diameter stays about the same, cooked or raw.

The curry and steak seasoning made for great flavor. The carrots are definitely good at avoding overshrink.

Personally, I prefer a 3 or 4 parts lean ground beef to 1 part ground pork for hamburgers, not fatty beef. But they worked well, overall...and the extra sugar from carrots helped with the headcold I caught from the daughter.

Let's eat!