Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean Casserole. The words make my mouth water. I love the stuff, but I only eat it at holidays. Honestly, there's no reason why I couldn't make it during the rest of the year, but it's probably just fine that I don't.  After all, the basic premise behind the recipe is, "let's take simple, healthy, green veggies and pump them full of fat and salt, then bake and top them with more fat and salt."  Nonetheless, Thanksgiving is not complete without the stuff, so I had to find a way to have it this year too.

I'm actually nerdy enough that I took 3 separate recipes and figured out the nutritional values for each one before I started cooking this dish. (I made a spreadsheet. I know. Jarrod makes fun of me too. I'm ok with it.) So, I started with my family recipe (add in cheese and extra onions, skip the soy sauce), then compared it to a "low fat" recipe, as well as a fully homemade recipe (no canned soup, make your own fried onions). Believe it or not, the least calories/fat/sodium was the light version of the recipe I grew up with. The homemade version was more salt and fat than the much simpler "open a can of soup" variety. So, I decided that's what I'd use. Basically my family version, but with fat free soup, less cheese and onions.

But here's the thing. When I went to the grocery store last week, trying to plan ahead for this week, when I knew the commissary would be insane with last-minute shoppers, I hadn't already done all this calculating, and I assumed that the homemade version would be the best for me, and I knew I had all the raw ingredients to make the soup part. So I didn't buy any variety of cream of mushroom soup, whether fatty or free.  I realized this on Tuesday, but didn't go to the store because I didn't want to have to face the parking lot, much less the inside of the store just to get one can of soup.  I figured I was clever, I could find some way around it.... and I vaguely remembered seeing something about making "cream of..." soup at home.

Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup.
I could have just poured it in a bowl for dinner.

So, I turned to my new best friend, Pinterest. This post over at Buns In My Oven (isn't that a cute name for a baking blog?) was my godsend. It's a recipe for Cream of Chicken soup, but since the poster admits to using salty water instead of chicken broth, I figured I could adapt it without losing too much. I happened to have some great big, local mushrooms that came in last week's veggie delivery, so I chopped those up and sauteed them in just a little butter. Then I made the roux (fat+flour), added liquid (half milk, half water), threw in the sauteed mushrooms, and salt & peppered it. Took 5 minutes, tasted just like the stuff from a can, and I actually know what's in it. Don't think I'm ever buying "cream of" soup again!

Since the soup was warm, and I wasn't actually going to bake the casserole right away, I just threw the hot soup over the top of frozen green beans (french cut is the only acceptable version here, by the way), added some more milk, half a cup of 2% grated cheddar cheese, and half a cup of french fried onion rings. Mix, pour into baking dish, stash in fridge til I cook it tomorrow.

Mmmm looks delish already.
I can almost taste it.

Do you see how my bowl has handy-dandy measuring marks in it? I don't know what I'd do without those. Usually, when I make this dish, I'm cooking for a crowd, and I make a double batch, which I know fits in a 9x13 pan. But this was a small batch, and I really didn't know how much it was going to make. And I'm terrible at guessing at whether the amount in the bowl will fit into the baking dish I've picked out. Apparently, this makes 4 cups. The stoneware pieces I have were either 4 cups or 6 cups capacity, so I went with 6 cups, trying to avoid spilling over when it cooks.

I was so glad I didn't go too small and then have to transfer into a bigger dish and wash the first one for no reason. Trust me, this baking spree made enough dirty dishes without adding extras in just for kicks. It's the little things that make me happy, folks. And washing dishes is for the birds.

So, here's the recipe as I made it. Not quite as great for you as I originally planned, but I'm guessing it's gonna be awfully tasty!  Next time, I'd probably try to do it with a little less butter. I think the roux would have worked with 1 or 2 tablespoons instead of 3.

Green Bean Casserole (A little lighter)

Ingredients:
4 Tbl butter, divided
1 Tbl flour
1 cup milk, divided
1/2 cup water
2 cups mushrooms, chopped (what I got from 4 mushroom caps, each about 4" across)
salt & pepper to taste
1 regular-sized bag of French cut frozen green beans
1/2 c. shredded cheese
1 c. french fried onion rings

Directions:

• Melt 1 Tbl butter in a medium skillet. Saute the mushrooms in the butter (will soak up the liquid very quickly) until soft and fragrant. 
• Melt remaining 3 Tbl butter in a small saucepan, then add flour and whisk quickly to mix into flour with no lumps. Allow to cook for several minutes, until bubbling dies down and it starts to brown slightly. Pour in water, half the milk and the mushrooms, bring to a boil, stirring until thickened. Taste mixture, add salt & pepper as needed, then remove from heat. 
• Empty green beans into a large bowl, and pour soup mixture over them.  Add cheese & 1/2 cup onions, and mix all together. Pour into a casserole dish. 
• Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Top with remaining onions, and return to the oven for 5 minutes to brown.  Or, put it all together, cover, and refrigerate til you're ready to cook. 

6 Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories		201.1
Total Fat		13.9 g
	Saturated Fat	7.7 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.4 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	2.7 g
Cholesterol		26.0 mg
Sodium		609.6 mg
Potassium		83.9 mg
Total Carbohydrate		13.2 g
	Dietary Fiber	0.3 g
	Sugars	2.3 g
Protein		5.9 g

Turkey Day (sans actual turkey)

Well Happy Thanksgiving!  We all have so much to be thankful for this year. Today I'm saying an extra "thank you" for having my husband here at his home port for the holiday, the luxury of being a pampered puppy mom, and for the courage to start chasing my goals this year.

Jarrod had to work today, his regular every-four-days duty schedule happened to land today, so he was stuck on the boat all day. I took him in early this morning, and then went back to have dinner with him on the boat. It's the first time I've actually eaten boat food (usually if I go down for dinner, I'll make or pick up something and take it with me). It tasted pretty good, but it definitely wasn't prepared with the calorie-conscious diner in mind. But, I knew that was going to happen, so I planned for it and was careful with my portions, so I didn't go TOO far over for the day.

Jarrod and I got to talking about Thanksgiving, and we realized that neither of us really cares that much about turkey, but we both love the same sides. I personally love having leftover green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and stuffing as a meal on the day after Thanksgiving.  So, since we didn't do a meal at our house, and wouldn't have leftovers, I figured I could just make the good stuff and skip the turkey altogether.  I have a real tendency to overindulge on those tasty comfort foods, so I knew I'd need to lighten up the recipes if I was going to have a whole pans of my favorites sitting in the fridge. So tonight, I whipped up some Lighter Green Bean Casserole, Sweet Potato Pecan Casserole, Cranberry Salsa, and while I was at it, a batch of Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal for breakfast.

Since I did so much all at once, I'm going to split the recipes and pics up into several posts over the next couple of days. For now, I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving Day, and are looking forward to a relaxing weekend ahead.

Little Victories

Hello Friends! I haven't done much creative cooking in the last couple of days, but I had a victory this week, and I just had to share. 

So last night, I desperately wanted to completely cheat on the plan, go to Auntie Pasto's, and pig out on something creamy, carby, and terrible for me. But I didn't. I ate the food in my fridge and kept the calorie monster at bay for the day. I even went to bed when I started to feel hungry for a late night snack. I spent most of the evening dreaming about how I could blow the meal plan today instead. And then, I got on the scale this morning...

For at least 3, probably more like 4 years, I've weighed in at over 200 pounds according to my bathroom scale. I still remember the day it made the jump over that mark, and I've watched it creep up and up since then. When I started this health & fitness thing, I knew my first benchmark would be getting (and staying!) under 200. Well, I'm proud to announce that my scale read 196 this morning!  It was at 199.8 yesterday and the day before, but I wasn't quite ready to call that "meeting the goal" since an extra glass of water would probably have put me back up to 200... but today, I'm solidly inside the line, and I plan to stay there!

So, how did I celebrate? Well, that's another little victory. I got up, took the dogs on a long, hot, sweaty walk where they started trying to turn into other people's driveways about halfway through cause they were so hot and tired. Then, I came home and had a "decadent" breakfast - 2 eggs with yolks, and a bagel with laughing cow (creamy enough to fool me into thinking it's cream cheese but WAY less calories & no fat!). Well, at least it felt decadent. Grand calorie total: 284. Amazing how quickly priorities can change, isn't it?

Hope you're having a great Sunday, and that you have little victories in your own battles this week. 

Rat-tat-tooie

As part of our quest to eat healthier and keep things interesting, we recently signed up for a local produce delivery service, Oahu Fresh. Once a week, we get a bag of locally grown fruits & veggies. There are always some kind of greens and tomatoes, plus other veggies and fruits, some exotic, some run-of-the-mill.  Everything is super-fresh (as in, picked yesterday), most of it's organic, and we're supporting local farmers. Since we live on a tropical island, the growing season here is different than many other places, and only certain items are available locally.  The grocery stores mostly carry produce that's been shipped in, which means it's usually at or past it's prime by the time we can get it on the table. Before we signed up for Oahu Fresh, I threw away so many veggies and fruits that went bad within a day or two of purchase. Now, I've got greens in my fridge that came in last week's bag and are still crisp and fresh as they day they arrived. I've also got a great excuse to cook & eat veggies I might have never bought on my own, and in the process, discover new favorites.

So, for the last two weeks, we've gotten eggplant in our produce bags. They're smaller than the ones I'm used to, about the size of a grapefruit. We also got zucchini this week, and as soon as I saw those two things on the list, I knew what I was going to make for dinner - ratatouille!  In case you thought that was just a Disney movie, let me explain. Ratatouille is a traditional French dish made with garden veggies like eggplant, zucchini, and bell pepper. It's hearty like a stew, but you eat it with a fork, not a spoon.

Like so many French dishes that sound intimidating, making ratatouille isn't actually very hard. You do have to know what the heck to do with an eggplant, though.  Eggplant is a dense veggie, and very spongy.  If cooked wrong, it can be very slimy and not appetizing at all. So, to avoid that, you have to get some of the moisture out of it before you try to cook it. For this dish, I was going to cut the eggplant into 1/2 inch - 1 inch chunks, so I sliced them into thick rounds first, and laid them all out on a cutting board.  Then I took salt and pretty much just poured it over the rounds.  There's no real measurement, you just cover them, like this:

Then you let it sit. 10 minutes or so oughta do. The moisture practically pours out of the eggplant and just pools on top. You'll know it's done because there will be a puddle on top of each round. Take the piece and run them under cold water to rinse all the salt off. Pat them dry with a paper towel, then chop them into chunks.  Then cut up the rest of your veggies. Zucchini gets halved, then sliced. I like to cut mine a little thick so it holds its shape and texture. Bell pepper gets cut into strips, and the onion and garlic get sliced.

Saute the onion, garlic, and a bay leaf in a little olive oil, then add the eggplant and cook it for 6-8 minutes. I like mine pretty meaty, so I usually cook less rather than more. Then add the rest of the veggies and a little salt, stir, and cook until everything's nice and tender. Add some basil chiffonnade (stack the leaves, roll them up, then slice into little ribbons) and ground black pepper to taste. Don't forget to take out the bay leaf.

Like I said, I tend to just eat mine in a big bowl, but I had a friend coming for dinner, and my mom taught me that a meal has 3 things, (not to mention I hadn't had much to eat today besides chocolate chunk muffins & coffee, so some nutrients were in order) so I also cooked up some chicken and sliced it thin, and served it alongside some quinoa (a grain, kinda like couscous). Tasty, no?

Decadent Disguise

Hey friends! I've been pretty lax around the house this week, because I started working out with a trainer, and it's already kicking my patootie!  My first workout was Monday, and after an hour of lunges, squats, and all kinds of other body-weight strength training, every muscle in my body went on strike for about 3 days. I got up and went to Zumba on Tuesday, thinking a workout would help, but it just made my muscles hurt more.  It wasn't until I went back to the trainer on Wednesday that the muscles got stretched out enough to stop hurting. Today's much better, and I'm excited about the progress I'm going to make with my new regimen.

Anyway, today was the first day I really got back "on the wagon" (so to speak) with housework and in the kitchen. I had some friends over for coffee, and I wanted to make something delicious that wouldn't break the nutritional bank. I've been craving chocolate decadence, and hunting down a recipe that was healthy AND decadent has proven harder than I thought. And then I found these over at Dashing Dish. Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins. 120 calories each. If that doesn't get you, try this picture from the original post:

Yup, they're as delicious as they look, and mine looked just like that. Moist, chocolatey, and exactly what I've been craving. The recipe's simple, and comes out beautiful. They were a big hit with the girls, and I am all about having a dessert option that will actually ADD to my nutritional counter for the day rather than just pile on the sugar, carbs, and fat.

The only note I have about the recipe is that your mileage may vary when it comes to the oats.  Instead of using flour, the recipe calls for whole oats, and then you put the whole mess in a blender or food processor and spin til smooth. I used the amounts called for, and ended up with soup, not batter. I added probably an extra 1/2 cup of oats by the time I was done to get a consistency resembling brownie batter.  I added half the chocolate chips at the end, as she suggests, and they did turn out pretty, though I think in the future I'll just throw them all in and not bother with standing over the hot oven trying to put chips on top of half-baked muffins.

Here's the nutritional scoop. I think I'm gonna start calling these "You Just Think They're Sinful" muffins!

Nutrition Facts
Amount Per Serving
Servings Per Recipe		12
Calories		121.5
Total Fat		4.1 g
	Saturated Fat	2.4 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.6 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	0.7 g
Cholesterol		0.0 mg
Sodium		283.2 mg
Potassium		208.4 mg
Total Carbohydrate		25.5 g
	Dietary Fiber	4.3 g
	Sugars	6.5 g
Protein		3.6 g

Surprise! An Entry!

I've been thinking about this blog lately, and pondering the idea of starting back up with entries. We're not really "on the move" anymore (at least for the moment), but we've started on a different kind of journey. J has been working hard to lose weight since he left on deployment last year, and I've finally jumped on the bandwagon too. So now we're both watching our nutrition and working out, things that up til now, have always been too hard, too much trouble, or just a reminder of how bad off we were.

Now that I'm a stay-at-home-puppy mom and Pampered lady (thanks to both J's love and my Pampered Chef business, insert cheesy groan here), I've had the time, energy, and inclination to actually start cooking for fun again. Plus, many of my old standby's don't really fit into the meal plan anymore, so I'm constantly looking out for heathly, tasty dishes that don't taste like diet food. And thanks to Pinterest (follow me, we can be addicted together!), I have a seemingly endless supply of recipe ideas, already pre-screened by other helpful people on the web. I've been posting pictures on Facebook, but I've been thinking it'd be fun to add some commentary, maybe even pictures of the process. And then I remembered that we already have a blog!  Hey, isn't that convenient!

So, my inaugural entry (again) is here!  Whoo hoo!  Cue the fireworks and horns!  Ok, maybe not. Anyway, here goes. Last night I was thinking about breakfast, and how weekend breakfast is so much more decadent than weekday breakfast and how awesome that is. Going out to breakfast/brunch on the weekends is tough to justify in the healthy meal plan, but I figured I could whip up something just as tasty and rich that DID fit in. So I searched Pinterest for "weekend breakfast" and found a plethora of delicious-looking recipes. I'd tell you to go try it for yourself, but I'd never get you back here... you'd get lost in the deliciousness. So suffice it to say, try it for yourself, sometime when you've got a little time to spare.  

I was completely enthralled by two ideas: baked oatmeal (with pumpkin!) found at a blog called Budget Bytes and baked eggs by Kay at Kayotic Kitchen.

I mean, how am I supposed to pass up that picture? Breakfast + pumpkin + whipped cream = heaven!

and then there was this.... it's like a little mini omelette/fritatta/quiche, but with non-scrambled eggs. (if I had to rank all the ways to have eggs, I'm not sure scrambled would make even the top 10. Over medium and benedict are neck-and-neck for that #1 spot!)

OK, so after much debate, and literally hearing my stomach growl after studying these recipes for entirely too long last night, I just decided I'd have to make them both and see how they turned out.

I started the Baked Oatmeal first, since it cooks longer. The recipe's pretty simple, and came together very easily.  Besides being bright orange, it just looks like really soupy oatmeal when it goes in the oven. I didn't have "pumpkin pie spice" but luckily, I had already pinned a recipe (from a site called My Baking Addiction - I think I'll be revisiting them!) to make it from what's already in my pantry.  I mostly just pulled out cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, cloves, and allspice and threw some in. Didn't really worry about proportions much. Otherwise, I followed the recipe to a T.

While the Oatmeal was in the oven, I started working on the baked egg. The recipe is obviously one that she changes up depending on what's in the pantry, so I made some adjustments to use what I had. First, the recipe makes 2 baked eggs, but I really only needed one. I started to just cut everything half, but by doing that, I'd have alot of little random leftover bits of vegetables, which seems pretty pointless. So instead, I made the whole recipe, and put half of everything in a bowl, ready to add an egg and bake later this week. Might even have it for lunch one day. It's actually a pretty complete meal, minus some kind of carb... So, I chopped up half an onion, then added in some red bell pepper and garlic (because what kind of recipe makes savory breakfast and doesn't include garlic and bell pepper?), and used cherry tomatoes, because that's what I had.  I had deli turkey, so I used that instead of ham. I could easily see it with leftover fajita meat, or bacon on a splurge day. I sauteed the veggies and turkey and split the mixture into two 1-cup prep bowls. I started to put them into 2-cup bowls, but that seemed too big. The 1-cup size turned out perfect. I think you could use a coffee mug if you didn't have a prep bowl or ramekin. You'd just have a pretty big gap between the food and the top of the mug.

I followed the recipe and sprinkled a little grated cheese on top of my veggies & turkey. In the currency of healthy eating, cheese is a pretty "expensive" ingredient, so I debated adding it. I could afford the calories today, and went pretty light on it, so I decided to leave it. The cheesiness was nice, so I think I'll leave that in. I might do a slightly different flavor profile and try and Parmesan or Feta next time.

So then comes the egg.  You make a well/indent in the veggie/meat/cheese mixture, and then basically just crack the egg over the top of everything, and let it settle in. I missed the part in the recipe about the well, but my yolk didn't break when I cracked the egg, so I just stuck my fingers in, pushed a well under where the egg was, and broke the yolk all at once. She says to use a "sharp tool" to break the yolk. I thought, "ehhh, a fingers are close enough." Most versatile tools in the kitchen, according to Alton Brown. I agree.

By this time, the oatmeal had about 5 minutes left. I feel the need to mention that it did not take me 40 minutes to do all that stuff for the egg. I washed dishes and started coffee first. Then there was some putzing around on the websites, getting distracted by Facebook, etc. The stuff for the egg took 15 minutes, maybe, including getting it all out of the fridge and putting back the leftovers. So, the bowl I used for the egg is pretty small, and I was afraid it would not rest evenly on the oven rack, and since I didn't want egg and stuff falling all over the bottom of my oven, I put it in my smallest stoneware piece to keep it level. I put it in the oven right next to the oatmeal, then moved it to the middle of the rack when I pulled the oatmeal out. I also upped the temp to 375 at that point. I think because I started it at a little lower temp, it took almost 20 minutes for my egg to bake.

So... big reveal... Here's the finished product.

The egg white dripped down into the veggie mixture and looked delicious when it came out of the oven. The white was cooked through and the yolk was just the right amount of runny for my over-medium taste. The texture and consistency of the mixture made me wish there were potatoes in it. Maybe that's just because I'm a firm believer that all breakfasts are improved by potatoes. Seems like it would be easy to add that, though I'd cut out some volume from the rest, since it was already almost too much "filling."

The oatmeal came out perfect! The texture is just like I like my oatmeal - fully saturated, but nice and thick. I'm currently eating it with a fork, no added milk or anything. Though I can definitely see the appeal of eating it warm, drenched in cream. I'll probably steer clear of the cream part, though I might warm it up and throw a little milk on top later this week. It makes 8 good-sized servings, so it'll last me all week. 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Here's the nutritional info, for those who are interested:

Baked Oatmeal:   Calories: 207  Fat: 3.9g  Sat. Fat: 1.6g  Cholesterol: 49.9mg  Sodium: 236.8mg  Carbs: 57.7  Fiber: 6.9g  Sugar: 22.4g  Protein: 6.8g

Baked Egg:     Calories: 161  Fat: 8.1g  Sat. Fat: 3.2g  Cholesterol: 204.6mg  Sodium: 407.8mg  Carbs: 8.7g  Fiber: 1.7g  Sugar: 1g  Protein: 14g

Video Tour of our House in Hawaii

I know, I know, I haven't blogged since we got here. Consider my wrist slapped. I'll try to get better. Believe it or not, I haven't actually had much to tell... it's mostly been work and unpacking. We saw a few sights, and I saw Jarrod off at the pier, and then it was back to trying to create something resembling "normal."

I did get a new phone, and it's got a pretty good video camera... my first video is of our house. Hope this satisfies your itch for pictures. Would love to show it to you in person!

Someone bug me about posting more often!