Cooking My Butt Off - May 2016 - Issue 101

COOKING MY BUTT OFF May 2016

The Challenge UNDER PRESSURE

Smoking Gun

Plating Tips

I've lost over 45 pounds by eating. Yes eating! Eating the right foods. But that doesn't mean boring – doesn't mean salads – and doesn't mean starving. I cook dinner every night and love sharing my recipes.

I want to share the meals I make every night that helped me lose weight. There will be some tips and tricks, and yummy food.

Most of my meals are chicken and veggies, which sounds boring, but I will show all the different ways to make a dinner full of flavor without the calories.

These are NOT diet meals. They are real meals with real food. I refuse to limit my tummy to frozen blocks of foodlike-meals. I use fresh ingredients with a twist.

May 2016 Contents

Issue 101

Page 4 The Challenge My challenge: No Mac and Cheese

Page 6 Under Pressure

Cooking with my new Pressure Cooker

Page 8 Smoking Gun How to smoke food in 5 minutes

Page 10 My Tip Plating may be the most important ingredient

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The Challenge I love a good challenge, especially when it come to cooking. My husband gives me challenges each week. This week's challenge: Bad Food Gone Good. He wanted me to make a meal that is usually fattening and make it healthy, but keep the look the same as the original. Ok. This wasn't a hard challenge. I do this all the time. Not hard...until the second part of his challenge was to make something I haven't made before.

Time to cheese it up!

I've been craving mac and cheese – but we already had pasta this week – so what's a girl to do?

So I went with my “go to” veggie: cauliflower. I've made everything with cauliflower. Rice, taco shell – but pasta?

I steamed the cauliflower for 15 minutes – and at the same time I poached a chicken breast in my homemade veggie stock. I squeezed out all the moister from the cauliflower using a cheesecloth and was surprised it kept its shape. Yea. Then, I put the cauliflower in a casserole dish and mixed it with fat free cheddar cheese, fat free ricotta, egg substitute and salt & pepper. I pulled the chicken into strips and mixed that into the “No Mac”, and top it all with a little cheddar. Baked it at 375 for 30 minutes and broil for 3-5 minutes just to get the top golden brown.

Ingredients Head of cauliflower cut into florets Cup of fat free cheddar cheese Cup of fat free ricotta cheese ¼ cup of egg substitute Salt & pepper One chicken breast Two cups of veggie stock Supplies Steamer Pot Cheesecloth Casserole dish

No Mac & Cheese

Under Pressure I just bought a pressure cooker because I love kitchen goodies. But I had NO idea how to use it. I've seen it used on every cooking show, but they really don't tell you how to use it. And the chefs cook steak in it, but I love chicken. So I had to just go with it.

In the pressure cooker, without the top on it, I sauteed onion, red pepper and garlic. I added my homemade stock (yes, I cook everything with my stock – it's fat free and no sodium) and added my chicken breast (cut in half). I put the lid on and cooked it on high. Once I saw steam and the Pressure Regulator start rocking side-to-side, I lowered the temp to medium and cooked it for 5 minutes. I swear I thought the cooker was going to blow up!!!

But it cooked the chicken so fast and made it juicy and delish! I took it off the heat after 5 minutes and let it cool down.

I also had some extra fruit sitting around so I peeled some plums and mashed it. I put that into a different pot with balsamic, low sodium soy sauce and honey. I cooked it down and served it over the chicken and veggies.

Holy crap, I can't believe that worked – and I didn't blow up the house. I can't wait to use my pressure cooker again.

Ingredients Chicken breast (cut in half) ½ Onion Red pepper Two cups of stock Two plums Two tablespoons of balsamic One tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce One tablespoon of honey Supplies Pressure cooker Pot

Pressure Cooker Chicken

Smoking Gun I'm always looking for ways to flavor up my meals without adding calories. There's always spices and fresh herbs around my house – but I needed something new.

I bought a smoking gun. This “gun� will smoke food in minutes. I put the tube on the gun, placed some hickory chips in the gun, turned the gun on and lit the chips on fire. The smoke immediately came out of the tube. I had just made chicken and had it sitting under a glass container. I took the gun's tube and put it under the glass container to surround the chicken with the smoke. The smoke filled the container in a minute. I turned off the gun and let the smoke and chicken sit for a few minutes and then served it. Of course it makes a dramatic presentation and the flavor and aroma was amazing.

You can smoke anything. I've smoked popcorn and different drinks. The smoke gives such an earthy tone to anything. And its just fun!

Ingredients Cooked chicken and veggies Supplies Smoking gun with tube Hickory chips Lighter Glass container

Smoked Chicken

My Tip I make chicken and veggies most nights, but I don't want to have the same meal each night. Plating is one of the most important steps I like to do to my dinners. It would be easy to put chicken on one side of the plate and veggies next to it.

But I like to make my dinners feel like a 5 star meal.

Tip: use lots of colors and shapes. One ingredient can be used several ways. You can place a piece of avocado on one side of the plate, and then a puree of the avocado on the other side. Same thing with peppers and herbs.

Another easy tip is to use a potato peeler on a zucchini to make a ribbon, then roll it up and put a toothpick in it to hold the roll. Looks fancy but it only took a minute to do.