Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > 218
KitchenKatalog: Blog 218
Friday, January 22, 2016, 08:00 PM
We had a family friend visiting with a very restrictive diet but we decided to see what we could do. Here is the full list:
No soy, grains, bananas, coffee, chickpeas, peanuts, peas, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, potatoes (sweets are ok), beta-glucan, mastic gum, gum arabic. Plus, [is a] vegetarian (no fish).
Add on that Meredith and I are trying to eat much more healthily and this becomes quite a challenge. We decided on Indian but this was also hard as tomatoes seem to be everywhere!!! I mean, we had to search through tons of recipes for ones that didn't call for them in the first place.
But, we ended up with:
I'll get to the saag panner soon, but first just the paneer. We wanted to make it low fat since otherwise, it is like eating cheese and that is a ton of points. By the way, in the future, we could do tofu in place of paneer and save a ton of calories and ease. But no soy for this meal.
I read a bunch of recipes but went with this "Food for 7 Stages of life" recipe (Local1). I liked that they went through all of the different options for curdling the milk and made it pretty clear that skim was ok.
However, we went with 1% (hence the really low fat but not quite fat free). We made some other changes as we went including:
The thing that really amazed me was low little it made. As you can see in the photos below, it made all of 7.25 ounces out for 1/2 gallon 1% milk (73 oz.). That is insane! You can see how much whey is left too (we saved some for other uses).
Oh, next time, I will use a larger pan. Once the milk started to boil, it made a huge mess!
How to make [Organic and Fat Free] Paneer at home? (from Food for 7 Stages of life)
Local Copy (U: guest P: name of my dog, lower case)
Again, we really struggled to find a recipe that didn’t call for (and seem to rely on) tomatoes. But eventually went with Vegetarian Times (Local).
We followed the recipe pretty closely except:
It worked out ok. Mostly tasted like sautéed spinach with a strong flavor of ginger and coriander. Essentially, like Indian sautéed spinach but not saag paneer. I think this is one of the recipes that really do benefit from heavy cream, etc. I do not know if I would attempt saag paneer again unless I am willing to use the cream.
Saag Paneer (from Vegetarian Times)
Local Copy (U: guest P: name of my dog, lower case)
We again struggled with the tomatoes, but eventually ended up with this Food.com recipe (Local) recipe. Actually, this was doubly difficult since we struggled to find vegetable (or vegetarian chicken) broth without tomatoes (see the photo below).
On the soup, we also stayed pretty true to the recipe except that we
We used all of the regular broth and half of the low sodium. It was pretty simple. Maybe a bit mushy but not bad. I think if we made this one again, we would go light on the cardamom. That flavor was a bit too strong.
Indian Lentil Soup (Dal Shorva) (from Food.com)
Local Copy (U: guest P: name of my dog, lower case)
We did our regular Curry Roasted Cauliflower Recipe again with the Tandoor Chicken Masala (same as used on 2015-11-11). We made a ton of it. Probably 2.5 heads worth. It was so much that, for the first time, I didn't finish what was left.
Also, I do not know if we didn't need it before or used it and forgot to note it, but we didn't add salt and it was missed. Good otherwise. Nice char and, as usual, lots of flavor
The original site has a good bit of useful pictures. Therefor, I also included a link to the PDF printout on the local page ↩
Friday, January 22, 2016, 04:07 PM
We were hungry and hadn't eaten lunch so we quickly threw together Huevos Rancheros. The only interesting thing we did is use leftover eggplant from the other day instead of beans (also saved calories). Not much else to it.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016, 08:00 PM
We made our now-regular lasagna soup. We again used the low-cal vodka sauce from Delallo first used 2015-10-09.
We also tried to make it even lighter by using
The potatoes worked really well. It saved us a good amount of points, required less processed food, and was just all-together good.
I still wish that we had a good way to make the sauce ourselves. This vodka sauce is really good and low points. I wonder if we could recreate it acceptably?
We also just had roasted eggplant.
2016-05-18 Update: Recipe moved to its own page
Tuesday, January 19, 2016, 12:00 AM
We made chili again using Kenji's Recipe (local). We followed the same basic changes as last time (2015-11-02) except we used about 0.85lbs of lean bison (all they had left). I think other than that, we tried to add as little water as possible to the paste. And we skipped the alcohol and sugar at the end.
Therefore, as we noted before, the biggest difference is to do the beef around the time you do the onion and to skip simmering the beans.
It came out really good as we had hoped. Lots of rich flavors and no grittiness. The only thing is, it makes about 4 (large) servings. In order to not be having half a can of beans at each serving, I think we will try to cut that down and then maybe add bulk in some other ways.
Monday, January 18, 2016, 12:00 AM
Meredith and I made a stir fry largely based on this recipe from A Beautiful Plate (local copy). We had to do it in a regular (though large) pan because we had to use the cast iron for something else.
We followed the recipe pretty closely except that we used canola oil for stir-frying (and a tiny bit of sesame oil for the flavor). We also used some Sriracha and Gochujang instead of the chili garlic paste.
The only other change we made was to pull the first batch of vegetables out before adding the shrimp. And we forgot to add the lime juice until after it was already poured out.
Everything came out really good. I was afraid the pan wasn't hot enough but it came out great. The shrimp also came out perfectly cooked. The flavors were really good. I really liked the ginger being part of the vegetable mix as opposed to just in the sauce.
We also did it over Cauliflower rice.
15-Minute Shrimp, Snow Pea, And Ginger Stir Fry (from A Beautiful Plate)
Local Copy (U: guest. P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Sunday, January 17, 2016, 12:00 AM
We wanted a quick and healthy meal so we made Huevos Rancheros. I did it the normal way except one of the pans was non-stick since we are clearing out our older pans.
I also didn't use butter and instead relied on just pam. Plus, I gave the tortillas extra time to really get a crisp. Finally, and most importantly which helped this version, I was extra careful to keep the toppings on the tortillas. That made it come off cleanly.
Anyway, the toppings were a tiny bit of El Pinto Green Chili sauce (or was it salsa, either way, not our fav) and then Pace. Plus, I also cut up some roasted red pepper. Oh and a lite bit of cheddar.
Good meal option as always!
Thursday, January 14, 2016, 12:00 AM
Meredith and I made Bahn Mi stuffed peppers.
We started by marinating pressed extra-firm tofu. We marinated with
(This came from some site but it is heavily modified as above)
We baked it at 350 for 40 minuted (tossed half way) and then let it sit and keep cooking in the cooling oven. At the same time (with the oven off) I put in the two halved peppers to cook a little.
This cooked the peppers just enough to not be raw and it slightly overcooked the tofu (though I kind of liked the extra chewy tofu).
We then filled the peppers with the tofu, sliced cucumber, sliced jalapeno, mint, and pickled carrots. The pickled carrots were from Vietnamese Home Cooking (book, local copy). We just followed the recipe as it was. It may be a ton of points in the recipe but you don't drink all (or barely any) of the liquid.
Oh, on mine, I also made a Sriracha mayo with light mayo.
Pickled Carrots (From Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, in lower case)
Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 12:00 AM
I was out late for something so Meredith made the cauliflower. She used the same seasonings I used on 2016-01-06 though I do not think she followed my method (I think she used less oil and a lower temp). Still, they came out fine. We topped it with a fried egg and Sriracha. Super simple!