One of my favorite meals is old school American Chop Suey. Big bowlfuls of comfort food goodness. Eaten with a shovel. Delicious!

I made mine with ground turkey, peppers, onions, Manwich and cassarole elbow macaroni.
It has to be the cassarole type. They are bigger and fit great on a shovel.

So, after a long workday that went from 330AM until 730PM, the menu of the week called for some comfort food. However, Karen did her usual substitutions and brought back our old friend.....

TOFU SHIRATAKI !

When mixed together with ground turkey, peppers and sauce it turned into this faux meal.

It's not my old school version but does have less calories and much less carbs.

The amount shown serves 4 (so there was enough for lunch today...uh...yea).
For those interested one serving is about 254 calories, 5 gm of fat, 6 gm of fiber.
Close to 6 points for the WW crowd.

As a treat Karen added a small roll of Scali bread (how can you not love her!)

To paraphrase Billy Shakes "...my kingdom for a can of Manwich!"

And to close I remain (according to my dear friend Donna),
Poor Ron



Chickpea "Egg" Salad

I was never one to eat Egg Salad. Be it in a sandwich or on it's own it was never something I liked. Some years ago when working with my good friend "Doc", when he brought an egg salad sandwich to work I would ask him to eat it somewhere else. I couldn't stand the smell of it.

I don't know why because I like eggs and all the other ingredients but mixed together was a substance I disliked.

So today Karen brought out a recipe taken from a cookbook published by the Refrigerated Foods Assoc.a group in which she is an active member. She actually submitted and had published my Dad's Blondie Recipe in the same book this year.

Our faux ingredient is once again chickpeas.

Chickpeas, onions, lite mayo, mustard, hot sauce and spices are mixed together. It looks like egg salad but without the accompanying aroma.

It has about 222 calories per serving and a load of protein and fiber.

Served with lettuce and tomato on a flat bread it was pretty tasty and filling. The picture actually shows 2 servings.

I missed Karen while she was away at the conference for a few days but she came home with a good faux recipe. One that even my old partner Doc could eat in the same room.

The flowers were in honor of Karen's return from the west coast.



Butternut Squash Hash Browns

I love hash browns. They can really complete the flavor profile of any type of breakfast. Whenever I go out for breakfast I'll try them to get each restaurants take on this simple side dish. For me it's all in the seasoning. It can make or break a good hash brown.

This morning Karen found a hash brown recipe on the Hungry Girl web site.

Today our special guest acting as a stand in for our beloved potato is........

Butternut Squash!

I'm used to preparing butternut squash as a side on a holiday and it's usually mashed. For this recipe I had to shred it and, I gotta tell ya, the shreds get EVERYWHERE!

The recipe includes onions and spice and it's a good mix and is pretty tasty. However, the taste always brought to mind a turkey dinner.

So the run down is as follows:

about a cup of regular hash browns can be 450+ calories

about a cup of Butternut Squash hash browns can be around 90 calories (0 WW+ points)



Paired with an egg white omelet (spinach and low fat cheese) and sriracha reduced fat bacon made for a satisfying and tasty Sunday breakfast.

Good food and good company......the makings a a great Sunday morning.

Now off to read the Sunday Times and Globe.

A Blondie for dessert

Lately, I've been feeling like the Mad Doctor in Mary Shelley's classic novel "Frankenstein". Since starting this blog Karen has made it her mission in life to find more faux food than usual.

Just like the Doctor feels ......"I've created a monster!".

My Dad was a baker his whole life. Starting after school, during WWII in the Navy and his whole working life he created wonderful and delicious treats. One of my favorites were his Blondies. They were a light colored brownie. Everyone loved them.

Today, Karen surprised me with a new version of Blondie. A low calorie high fiber dessert.

The faux part of the recipe is made with chickpeas. Thats right a veggie in my cake!

Lucky for me they also have peanut butter and chocolate chips in them to mask the taste. But also oats and flax seed.......and, did I mention, chickpeas!

So here is the rundown:

Regular Blondie or Brownie = 250 - 300 calories (7 - 10 WW+ points).

Chckpea Blondie = 140 calories (4 WW+ points).

Oh well, ever since they removed the transfats from Twinkies, it's a whole new world.

So pour me a glass of skim milk and and plate up my Veggie Dessert.

Thanks Darla!

Faux Mashed Potato

So tonight we were having sliced turkey and roasted root vegetables. What would go better than a hearty helping of Mashed Potato!

But wait.......Karen has a better idea....."Smashed Cauliflower"

This is a Cauliflower.

Looks like something Hannibal Lecter might eat for dinner ("...with fava beans and a nice Chianti.").

Well I steamed it and put it in the blender with garlic, Parmesan cheese and chicken stock. The consistency was too thin for me so I added a tablespoon of lite cream cheese to thicken it.

And hear it is.....

One cup of Mashed Potato with butter and milk is 222 calories (3 WW pp+).

One cup of Smashed Cauliflower is 47 calories (1 WW pp+).

It tasted pretty good (thanks to the cheese).

So our dinner was healthy and satisfying.

We paired it with a 90+ Cellars Garnacha ,a smooth Spanish Red. Two glasses are 300 calories (5 WW pp+).

I really didn't miss the potato, but I also didn't have any gravy. Does anyone else make a crater in their pile of potato and fill it with gravy?

mmmmmmm

(The roses were Karen's Valentine's gift.)







Faux Tea

Thanks to Darla for the "Pumpkin Tea".
Just another faux item made with pumpkin!

Faux Deep Dish Pizza

If you enjoy pizza crust you can stop reading now........

Today Karen came up with Portabella Pizza for lunch.

Only 3 easy ingredients:
2 large portalella mushroom caps
1/2 cup tomato sauce (we used puttenesca for more flavor)
1/4 cup reduced fat mozzarella cheese


Well, as a pizza fan I had to suspend all thoughts of crunchy satisfaction. This is a "pizza" you have to eat with a knife and fork. The mushroom exudes water as it cooks and the sauce is hot so holding it to eat isn't happening. You need to cook in a 3 step method: heat mushroom, add sauce and heat, then add cheese till it melts.

Cooking the mushroom does soften and remove some of the earthy taste. Using a more flavorful sauce is important.

A personal Deep Dish Pizza, frozen or at a restaurant, averages just over 500 calories.

Our faux delight is 230 calories for 2 caps. 4 PointsPlus for my Weight Watcher friends.

Overall the flavor was good and it was filling. It's still not a pizza so our local pizzeria's have nothing to worry about.

The spaghetti discussion

Recently Karen and I had the following discussion:

K - "What do you miss having for dinner from your old life?"

R - "Spaghetti, a couple times a week."

K - "We just had spaghetti twice last week!"

R - "No.....we had shirataki noodles (soy) and spaghetti squash (veggie). Not Pasta."

K -"It's almost the same."

R - (eye roll)

Bison filet as opposed to beef filet

Finally a faux change that I can endorse. A Bison filet instead of a beef filet.

A six ounce filet is only 180 calories and 2.5 grams of fat..A beef filet is about 350 calories and 16 grams of fat.

It's leaner and tastes just as good. You need to watch it while cooking because it cooks up fast.and if overdone might be like shoe leather.

So with a half twice baked potato, green beans with garlic and prosciutto and a nice Cabernet it comes in at about 875 calories. Not bad for a gourmet meal rivaling any restaurant around.

So, not everything will be a rant!

Burgers

I love a good burger. I don't even need much in the way of condiments. The flavor of a good burger can often stand on it's own. As long as you grind something and form it into a pattie anything can be a burger.
So lets talk about making it more calorie friendly.......

One can go with a leaner cut of beef. It will cut some calories but not a lot. So we move on to other types.
Even Bison has less calories and fat.

Turkey or chicken burgers can be good but for me require more condiments. They lack flavor and need to be spiced up.

I do love a salmon burger. Some of these are cleaner and have less fillers. Trader Joe's has a great salmon burger but it's more flaked salmon pressed together. I like the Trident brand as I find them tastier.

And finally the Veggie burger. I don't mind one now and then. As long as it's ground up and in the pattie shape I can add condiments and have the feeling of eating a burger with less calories. That is until Karen found Dr Praeger's Veggie Burgers. Overall they were tasty but the consistency and material make up of the pattie didn't cut it for me. They cooked up well but when I took a bite out came whole pieces of corn, carrots and squash. If I'm eating a veggie burger at least grind everything up and fool me! I don't want to be reminded I'm eating veggies!

By the way another way to save the calories is to use light burger rolls (white or wheat) , sandwich rounds or bagel thins.

Or say the hell with it and take Karen out to Fudruckers!

Introduction

Faux
adjective
Artificial or fake. An imitation.
From the French faux (fais) "false"

Over the years I have lost at least 1000 pounds (and gained most of it back). I'm currently working at it again with the help and encouragement of Karen my love/spouse/coach/personal trainer/nutritionist.

She finds and creates ways to take the foods we love and make them lower in calorie. This is by using different ingredients or choosing a replacement type food.

Some of the time it works.......some of the time it doesn't.

This will be a way for me to rave or rant.
But as many who know me will tell you it will mostly be a rant.

Stay tuned.