Friday, June 25, 2010

Coming Soon!

Hiyashi Chuka (cold Chinese noodle salad)
Russian Chicken and braised cabbage
Chicken/Shrimp Gyoza - (Fried Dumplings)
More Asparagus soups
Spaghetti and Pasta

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients:
100g of frozen pearl onions
200g of lean steak cut in small pieces
100g of chopped mushrooms
2 packets of Miracle Noodles, fettucine style
2 cubes beef bouillon
salt pepper

Instructions:
1. Make the mushroom soup in a separate recipe.
2. Rinse the noodles thoroughly. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil and add the bouillon, salt pepper. Add the noodles and bring to a boil for 2-3 minutes. Strain and hold aside.
3. In a non-stick fry pan, fry the steak pieces, mushrooms, and thawed onions until browned. Then add 3 cups of the mushroom soup and simmer.
4. Serve the noodles on a plate and top with the mushroom steak sauce.

Calories:
The entire meal is just under 200 calories for each serving.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:
112g of diced onion
400g of cut up mushrooms (brown for a very dark flavor or white of light flavor)
2 tbsp minced garlic
4 tbsp of Kroger brand worcestershire sauce
4 cups water
Salt and Pepper to taste
3 cubes chicken bouillon
2 cubes beef bouillon
2-3 dashes of nutmet
2-3 dashes of red pepper flakes or chili powder (if desired)

Soup Instructions:
1. In a non-stick fry pan, saute the onion until slightly translucent. Then add the mushrooms, salt pepper, garlic, and continue till the mushrooms become slightly cooked. Take off the heat and add the worcestershire sauce and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. In a sauce pan, put the water, salt pepper garlic, bouillon, and bring to a boil. Then add the mushrooms/onions, nutmeg, and pepper flakes (chili powder). Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat for about 45 minutes or so. Take the soup off the heat, and let cool to room temperature.
3. When the soup has cooled, put it into a blender and blend thoroughly.
4. At this point you have a wonderful creamy mushroom soup that can be eaten separately if desired with a little chicken sprinkled on top for a meal.

Calories:
The whole batch of mushroom soup is 144 calories, and easily enough for 4 servings of 36 calories each.

Mexican Soup with Chicken

Ingredients:
5 cups water
5 cubes chicken bouillon
2 onions (300g) chopped in large pieces
1 large green pepper (200g) chopped in large pieces
1 small can green chiles
4 roasted red peppers puree'd in blender
1 bottle of Kroger brand Chipotle Enchilada sauce
2 cans fire roasted tomatos
120g of thin diagonally sliced celery
1 tsp or more of minced garlic
S&P to taste
2-3 tbsp Coriander Powder
2-3 tbsp Cumin Powder
2-3 dashes of Nutmeg
3-4 dashes of aprika
2-3 dashes of Cayenne Powder
2 tbsp Chili Powder
30g of diced cilantro
4-5 tbsp Lime Juice

Instructions:
Put everything but a dash of diced cilantro and diced onion in a large pot and boil it... Not too hard. Feel free to add more or less of the spices to your taste. Use the cilantro and onion you held aside for garnish when serving sprinkled on top. Let it boil down till vegetables tender and spice flavor matured.

Calories:
Though some of these items are individually quite high, the entire pot is about 650 calories. It makes 6 generous helpings, or 8 or more smaller helpings.

Serving:
Ladle out 1/6th of the soup into a bowl. Sprinkle 100g of cubed or shredded boiled chicken on top. Then sprinkle the cilantro and onion on top for garnish. Serve. With the chicken and 1/6 of the soup, this is a 200 calorie portion.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Chicken Asparagus Salad

Ingredients:
200g chicken breast
3 cups water
2 cubes chicken bouillon
316g of asparagus tops (save woody bottoms for soup base)
9g finely grated raw ginger
2 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of ponzu sauce
2 tbsp of cider vinegar
1 packet of nutrasweet
75g of diced onion or green onion
Celery tops
Salt & Pepper
Lawry's Seasoned Salt
Garlic Powder

Instructions:
1. Put the 3 cups of water into a small sauce pan. Throw in the bouillon, salt and pepper, celery tops, diced onion, asparagus bottoms, garlic powder, and boil thoroughly to create a concentrated chicken/vegetable base.
2. In a separate small tupperware container, combine the grated ginger, vinegar, ponzu and nutrasweet, cover with tight lid, and shake to combine. Put this in the refrigerator.
3. Strain the soup base from the vegetable pieces. Hopefully at this point after boiling and reducing, you should have about 1 cup of concentrated soup. Cut the chicken into strips and boil in the soup base until cooked. When it is finished, take it out, dip it in cool water to cool, and then shred it or cut it into very small strips. You could chunk it if you want. Set the chicken aside for a moment. Continue to reduce the broth until you get about 1/2 cup of liquid.
4. Cut the asparagus tops diagonally into 1 inch segments. Take a large non-stick fry pan and heat it empty. When it is very hot (put a drop of water in and see if it jumps), then put in the asparagus pieces and fry and toss on high for 2 minutes or so. Then sprinkle on the seasoned salt, salt and pepper and fry for 30 seconds. Don't worry if some of the spices carmelize on the pan... After that, add the soup base and soy sauce, cover and let boil for 1 minute on high. Turn the heat down to medium, and throw in and toss the shredded chicken. After 30 seconds or so, remove from heat, and put into a covered bowl to chill in the refrigerator.
5. When you are ready to serve, the asparagus chicken mixture should be cold, and the vinegar ponzu dressing should be cold. Mix these two and toss thoroughly and serve!

Calories:
As configured here, this recipe including the chicken is 310 calories and enough for two servings of 155 each.

Options:
Since you have a few calories to spare, you could cut up some fresh tomatos into small pieces and toss with the salad as well.

Enjoy...

Friday, June 18, 2010

Creamy Asparagus Soup!

Ingredients:
430g of chopped Asparagus Tops (Cut off woody bottoms and save them)
75g of raw fresh spinach leaves
150g of diced onion
Salt & Pepper
Garlic Powder
Italian Seasoning
Red Pepper Flakes, or Chili Powder
4 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce (Smiths Brand)
4 cubes chicken bouillon
Celery leaf and celery tops

Instructions:
1. Start by making a basic chicken broth. Put 5 cups of water in a pan with the bouillon, asparagus woody bottoms, celery tops, 75g of the onion, salt pepper garlic and Italian seasoning. Boil for at least 15-20 minutes to make the soup base.
2. In the meantime, in a frypan, toast the remaining 75g of onion till semi-transparent. Then add salt pepper, garlic powder and Chili powder/Red Pepper to the onions and flip a couple of times to mix. Add the chopped Asparagus tops and worcestershire sauce and continue to fry them with the onions for 2 minutes or so.
3. Strain out the vegetables out of the soup base as much as possible. Then add the asparagus/onion fry mix to the broth and boil for about 15 minutes.
4. After boiling for 15 minutes, add the fresh spinach to the hot soup, stir in to mix with soup, and let cool down.
5. After it has cooled, blend the soup in a blender thoroughly. It will look like a creamy soup at this point.
6. Leave it cool until you are ready to heat it for the meal.

Calories:
This recipe is 150 calories. It could serve two large portions, or 4 smaller portions depending on how you want to serve it.

Options:
You can serve this as a cold soup with chopped tomato garnish on top. When you serve it warm, you could serve the soup with shredded chicken sprinkled on top. It would be an excellent choice to go along side a grilled fish fillet as well. It is a very good soup...

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Shrimp Cocktail - Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:
200g cooked peeled shrimp - diced
150g diced celery
150g diced cucumber - peeled and seeded
100g asparagus
30g cilantro
1/4 cup lemon juice
130g diced apple - peeled and cored

Sauce:
1 can of diced tomatos
1 roasted red pepper
85g onion
10g fresh finely grated ginger
Salt & Pepper
Garlic powder
Paprika
Celery Seed
Pepper Vinegar - Trappers Brand, Vinegar with Tabasco peppers in it
2 tsp horseradish
4-5 tsp of calorie free worcestershire sauce (Smith's Kroger Brand)

Instructions:
For the sauce, dice and pan fry the onion in a non-stick pan to toast the onion with the ginger. Strain as much water as possible from the tomatos and put into a blender with the onion/ginger, red pepper, horseradish, S&P, garlic, a couple of dashes of paprika, celery seed, worcestershire sauce, and 3-4 tsp of Pepper Vinegar. (Apple cider ok, just add a dash or two of tabasco sauce.) Thoroughly blend, and set aside in the refrigerator to cool.

For the salad, take the tender part of the asparagus stalks and boil them for several minutes until tender, but not too soft. Then cut the asparagus into small pieces. Then combine in a large bowl, the asparagus, shrimp, celery, cucumber, apple, cilantro, lemon juice, salt and pepper and thoroughly toss. Then pour the sauce onto the salad, and thoroughly toss and chill.

When serving, serve with a little more horseradish and/or tabasco to spice up to taste. It has the feel of gazpacho in the end, if you want to call it that...

Calories:
The salad has about 275 calories and the sauce has 125 calories, so it totals 400 calories for the batch. At two servings, you have 200 calories each, but this includes a fruit in the mix. In reality, this is a rather rich dish, and typically I have a hard time finishing half the batch. So eat it for lunch, and the rest for a mid-afternoon snack.

Thai Green Curry Chicken Soup

Ingredients:
8-10 cups of water
4 chicken bouillon cubes
170g of celery, angle cut thin
8oz can of sliced water chestnuts
8oz can of bamboo shoots
240g of onions, sliver cut
100g mushrooms
30g of cilantro
15g of finely grated fresh ginger root
1/2 bottle of Thai Green Curry Paste (from Smiths)
S&P to taste
1/4 cup of key lime juice
2 packets of nutrasweet

Per Serving of Soup:
1 large diced fresh tomato (about 130g)
100g of raw chicken

Instructions: Bring water to boil with bouillon. Add the celery, onion, bamboo shoots, cilantro, ginger, and water chestnuts as they are cut. Add the salt and pepper, lime juice, and curry paste, and turn to low heat to season the flavors. Stir in the 2 packets of nutrasweet at the end of cooking. This is the soup...

When it is at soft boil, I put in the raw chicken breast into the soup to cook it. It will absorb some of the curry flavor. When it is cooked, take the chicken out of the soup and chill it. When it is chilled, shed the chicken into strips. Add a little lime juice and S&P to the chicken, and chill until serving.

Serving Instructions:
Ladle the soup out into bowls. (Makes about 4 portions) Then top the hot soup with the cold shredded chicken and fresh diced tomatos.

Calories:
The soup as configured above has 310 calories, which is about 80 per portion. When you add the shredded chicken and tomatos per serving, it is about 120 calories. So the bowl of soup comes in about 200 calories.

Sloppy Joe

Ingredients:
460g of very lean beef, (95% lean or better)
365g of finely diced onion
335g of finely diced celery
2 cubes of beef bouillon
2 cans of dices tomatos
Pinch of dried, toasted onions
1/4 cup of worcestershire sauce (Kroger Brand at Smiths with very low calories)
1/2 cup of cider vinegar
6 packets of nutrasweet
S&P to taste
Garlic powder to taste

Instructions: Fry the meat and drain off what fat you can. Add the onion and celery and fry with the meat until vegetables are tender. Add and stir in the Salt & Pepper, Garlic, dried onions. Add the canned tomatos, bouillon, worcestershire sauce and vinegar and bring to boil. Then turn down the heat and slowly boil off the liquid. Once the liquid has boiled off, add the nutrasweet, stir in well, and then take off heat and serve.

Calories: This batch was 975 calories, and would be more than enough for 5-6 servings.

Variation: You can add a little chili powder while cooking or tabasco sauce at the end to spice it up some.

You can serve with Melba Toast, eat as filling for lettuce wraps, or just eat it as it is...