Let's share meal ideas- easy and low-fat

[1905]

I eat this almost every meal.

I make some type of pasta, a few minutes after putting the pasta in the boiling water I add a ton of broccolli right to the water in the same pot as the pasta. I have more broccolli than pasta. When it's done, I add a small amount of garlic salt, lemon pepper, tobasco sause and that powdered parm. cheeese (that has very few calories). But I'm sure you could put marg. or butter on it then the parm. This will last me for days. Broccolli only has 30 calories a serving, my plate is mostly broccoli. What are your easy favorites?

Also, I like the Healthy Choice frozen meals to bring to work.

 

[slsh]

Up all night- I say this with major concern for your well being. It greatly worries me that you are looking to share low-fat meal ideas. I'm really uncomfortable writing this because I feel like a buttinski, but given that recently you were asking for strength to seek help and now you're talking about 30-calorie servings... I just am very worried about you. Are you okay?

 

[Lothlorien]

I tend to agree with Slsh. I think you need to have some protein with your broccoli. Baby steps are more realistic, so have a hard boiled or scrambled egg or a few peices of chicken breast.

I hope you don't feeled ganged up on. We are just expressing concern. I know you said you have an appointment next week, right? So, make a goal to gain a pound or two before you go.

 

[AnnieO]

UAN - First -

Second... I too saw the post and was very concerned. Low fat recipes are good, but you have to have some fat to survive! Also - I agree with Loth - protein is super important. (Remember, muscle does weigh more than fat due to density, so if you have some protein in there it will help you gain muscle. I love hardboiled eggs - they're small and compact, doesn't seem like you're eating much but they have lots of protein, so...)

 

[PatriotsGirl]

I usually make that with chicken, mushrooms and alfredo sauce. YUM. I couldn't see eating it for days - I like variety. Heck, I love food. It is okay to eat low fat, just make sure your body is getting the proteins and vitamins it desperately needs. Our bodies are our vehicles, we have no choice but to take care of it!

 

[ThreeShadows]

UAN, are you ok?

 

[DammitJanet]

Is this in response to my post in PE? Before we assume that she is posting this for her...people have been posting trying to help me find meals that I can make that are easy, pretty easy on the weight for me and Tony...and not too much standing for me. And prep time limited. So this might be her bringing that post over here. Not sure...but ....thought it might be.

 

[Hound dog]

Is this in response to my post in PE? Before we assume that she is posting this for her...people have been posting trying to help me find meals that I can make that are easy, pretty easy on the weight for me and Tony...and not too much standing for me. And prep time limited. So this might be her bringing that post over here. Not sure...but ....thought it might be.

That's the way I took it too. A way to get more people on board for Janet.

Sounds like an interesting dish and easy enough to do. But you might not want to eat this all the time as you're going to load up on potassium that way........or, well, I couldn't eat it except once in a great while and not a lot. Pasta is good for you, it's the portion and what you put on it that can make it fattening.

Most of my recipes are not quick, the reasoning behind it is to get you away from processed foods and to make you think about what you're eating. Since I normally cook from scratch it's not so bad.......although someone could've told me chickpeas and various beans are sold in frigging cans! omg lol

UAN how are things going for you? Realize that the concern expressed here is cuz we love you and want you around for a very long time. ((hugs))

 

[DammitJanet]

I think I may have come to the conclusion that I am holding myself to a higher standard than I should. I think I should be June Cleaver or Paula Dean. I should have 3 full course dinners on the table every night that are slaved over. I suspect that might not be the case in most families. I try so hard for perfection that when I fail, I fall into a depression and cannot pull myself out of it even into mediocre. I think that is my problem with most things. I want things perfect and when they cant be due to my issues, I simply shut down. I need to get over that. How I dont know. Could this be a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?

 

[susiestar]

UAN, The meal sounds quite good, but most of us would prefer some protein in it.

Janet, this does sound rather Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to me. It is hard, but moderation in ALL things is what I try to strive for. I don't think serving a 3 course meal each day is required. There is a reason that one pot meal cookbooks are so popular - it is because MOST people don't eat complicated dinners each day. My family wouldn't know how to cope if I did that!!

Perfection is not just impossible. It is UNHEALTHY. Has this been a lifelong way of thinking or something that has crept up the last few years? What can you do to fight the perfectionism? I struggle with it also.

As for meals, I posted a while back about trying the new Philadelphia stuff for meals. It is sold by the cream cheese in the dairy section in a little tub. Now it is in 2 sizes and they have 4 flavors I think. We really liked it and then promptly forgot about it. I got a tub the other day and it was as good as we remembered. It is like a flavored cream cheese - we had the italian flavor. I am going to try to DIY it with cream cheese and italian seasoning, garlic and parmesan. UAN is right about parmesan - a little bit packs a BIG flavor punch. We used the large size tub of flavored stuff, a pound of chicken breasts cut into small pieces, a pkg of california mix frozen veggies (broccoli, cauliflower and carrots) and a bag of chopped broccoli. I wish we had added pasta to it but we didn't think of it. I don't think it was low fat, but it got more veggies into thank you than any meal I can think of ever has so we will do it again for sure!

I often toss the frozen veggies into the pasta water if I am doing a pasta salad or pasta dish. I used to keep a container in the fridge and would toss the leftover water from cooking pasta into it then I would use that water when I went to make some kind of soup. The starch from boiling the pasta helps to thicken the soup and if you cooked veggies in that water some nutrients would be in the water and you get that too.

A GREAT way to up the nutrient value of your meals is to toss in pureed veggies. You can even buy baby food to do this if you do't want to puree them yourself. I saw a recipe the other day wehre they added a cup of pureed butternut squash or sweet potato to tomato soup (canned) and then used half water and half light cream (half and half) for the water to make the soup. You could use milk and lower the fat but it would still make the soup creamier. The squash or sweet potato adds a TON of vitamins and wouldn't change the taste that much. Just be aware that sweet potatoes give you gas so use beano and/or gas ex if that is a problem for you.

You could also get the sweet potato fries and have them instead of french fries to help make a meal more healthy. Or make your own sweet potato fries by slicing a sweet potato, spraying it with PAM and baking like fries.

Also try adding veggies to pizza. Even add them to frozen pizzas - they add flavor and nutrients and you don't feel deprived because you still get pizza.

 

[Hound dog]

I'm a fellow perfectionist. It can be a pretty awesome trait to have, but it can also become a pretty heavy duty fault too. One of those 2 edge sword deals.

Used to be someone would come to visit and every surface in my home was scrubbed to perfection (not that it usually wasn't to begin with). I'm serious when I say people could sit and eat off my floors. A visit from my mom could send me into scrubbing walls, windows, closets.........Why I dunno because as husband used to say.....honey she finds fault with something anyway, stop killing yourself.

It wasn't just cleaning, it was everything though. Meals weren't too awful, I at least enjoyed cooking, clean up always svcked though. lol

While this is a good thing on so many levels...........Like with the cleaning I've been having to do.........it's not so good. I have to be careful and force myself to just surface clean first, to get the worst of it out of my way, then go back and do the heavy duty organizing and cleaning and scrubbing. Otherwise I get caught up in the details and I'm exhausted before I'm 1/3 of the way done with a room. Unfortunately I haven't been overly successful about details and that is why I'm still at it. But if you focus on details say in a room as trashed as most of my house was and filled with mountains of clutter.....you wind up giving up because it takes forever. I've been having issues with giving up because I DO have to do the details to get things organized and get husband's stuff completely cleared out.

I've just been continuously making myself start over.

You don't have to be June Cleaver and I'll never forget the first cluttered house I walked into as an adult. I was stunned. Evidently my mom's friends were all people who thought they had to be June Cleaver too. lol And I used to die cuz everytime mother in law came over to the house for some reason or other, which was rare, the house would be cluttered of course......ugh Until one day mother in law laughed and told me to stop worrying about it. It never failed that if her mother in law came to visit her house was always cluttered too, said she could keep the darn thing spotless 24/7 but the one time it wasn't was when her mother in law would show up on her doorstep. lol THAT is when I began to relax about it.

 

[Signorina]

My favorite "UH OH-my eating is out of control lately" Recipe" So tasty, doesn't seem like "light" and kids are happy because of the crunchy tortilla strips!

TORTILLA SOUP WITH CHICKEN AND LIME
An adaptation of a recipe from Mexican Light Cooking
4 5- to 6-inch diameter corn tortillas
2 teaspoons olive oil

2 14 1/2-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth
2 cups water
3/4 cup canned Mexican-style stewed tomatoes with juices (I use petite diced tomatoes-not a fan of stewed in general- and sometimes add some chili powder and some green chiles)
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, pressed
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
12 ounces skinless boneless chicken breast halves or thighs or leftover cooked chicken, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips (or poach uncooked chicken in water with a bit of salt and use the resulting broth!)
2 green onions, sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush 1 side of tortillas with oil (I mist with Olive Oil); cut in half. Stack halves and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide strips. Spread strips on nonstick baking sheet. Bake until light golden, about 15 minutes. Cool on baking sheet.


Combine broth, water, tomatoes, bay leaf, garlic, cumin and red pepper in saucepan; bring to boil. Reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes. Add uncooked chicken strips to HOT broth, simmer until cooked through (5mins) *OR* add cooked chicken; simmer until just warmed through, about 2 minutes. Stir in green onions, cilantro and lime juice. (sometimes I add corn-usually frozen, string beans, ditto, or some steamed diced carrots. You can also add some rice if you want the soup thicker or heartier) Season with salt and pepper.
Ladle soup into bowls. Sprinkle with tortilla strips ( a little shredded cheese too) and serve.
Serves 4.

Per Serving: calories, 249; total fat, 7 g; saturated fat, 1 g; cholesterol, 61 mg
Bon Appétit

 

[DammitJanet]

I was so extremely Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and a perfectionist at work and school that nothing got by me. When I was in college I got a 4.0 while I had 3 kids under the age of 6. At work, all my evaluations were excellent and I moved up faster than they had expected. I was only there 3 months before they moved me into a specialized case load which normally didnt happen until someone had been there at least 2 years. When I became a fraud investigator, I worked up more fraud cases than the other two investigators combined. When we got our computers, I learned the new database program myself and wrote the program to track our clients payments and balances so we could bill through the computer instead of by hand.

Im not used to not being good at things. Sure the house was never a Home and Garden contestant but it was never like this. I have never been Martha Stewart. Tony was raised with a mother who was a southern cook. But we also have to realize she died when he was 15 so I think his memories could be slightly glorified. They were also very poor so everything they ate had to be raised or grown in their own garden. She also had a daughter to help her and 5 sons.

 

[HaoZi]

I think I may have come to the conclusion that I am holding myself to a higher standard than I should. I think I should be June Cleaver or Paula Dean. I should have 3 full course dinners on the table every night that are slaved over. I suspect that might not be the case in most families. I try so hard for perfection that when I fail, I fall into a depression and cannot pull myself out of it even into mediocre. I think that is my problem with most things. I want things perfect and when they cant be due to my issues, I simply shut down. I need to get over that. How I dont know. Could this be a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?

Wow. I don't buy much of anything that doesn't have microwave directions on it.

 

[Hound dog]

I'm guessing his mom had quite a bit of help then, and I'm doubting she worked outside the home. And you're right his perceptions/memories are most likely embellished as is what happens over time.

I'm proud of myself for reconquering the kitchen again yesterday. I dunno what it is about my kitchen but it can get cluttered / messy faster than I can blink I swear. At first I was just going to tackle dishes that had gotten behind due to running and watching the boys. Dishes led to trash, led to sweeping, led to picking up, led to cleaning the hutch, led to cleaning my desk. lol Now when it works out like that it's great. I didn't get bogged down in details. I still have to clean out the frig and mop but it looks 100 percent better.

Currently I'm trying to motivate myself for the rest of the downstairs rooms. lol I need to get the tree up tonight.

 

[DammitJanet]

What is the main issue though when comparing his mother to me is that she was also very large...and yes she did work outside the home on and off. In fact that is part of why she died. She went in for a gastric bypass and died in the hospital from pneumonia.

 

[Hound dog]

Hmm, then going to take an easy guess here and say your weight / mobility issues probably have Tony scared he's going to lose you. Men express that totally differently than females. husband was actually POed at me for having my heart attack, as if I'd planned it or something. could be a subconscious type deal too where he's mad, he's just not exactly sure why he's mad. Projecting any lingering anger at his mom for not taking care of herself onto you without realizing that's what he's doing.

I'd set mini goals for yourself as far as the house goes. It works better for me that way and I feel like I accomplished something. If I manage to do more (like yesterday) wonderful, if not, then I don't feel like I failed that day. Win/win because I can usually still move the next day which is always a plus. lol

 

[buddy]

YOu know Hound, I think you are really on to something. Not being an expert on men, since my dad was the last guy I lived with..lol.... I can say for me, while on the outside I do everything I can for someone when they are sick or hurting.... I emotionally pull WAY back.... to the point that when they die I can hold off crying because I have already detached..... I fell totally apart TWO years after my dear dear grandma died. I had little streams at her funeral, but not the real grief. I can really close off that part of me. I am good at faking it though, I wonder if Tony has a different style... just putting himself into a place of not really being a friend. It is clear from other posts Janet has shared that he truly does love her. maybe with all of their life stress and what Janet went through, his nearly losing her, he is now having a little PTS (I wont say disorder the D but maybe R=reaction) now???

How is that for arm chair psychology? probably dumb, but I can relate to that idea anyway. Doesn't help Janet much in terms of daily living .... he has to realize she is there NOW and nothing is a one answer fix for sure. I wish we could play a tape at night to get it into his subconscious that she needs his support now so that she can be around for a long long time.

 

[buddy]

uan, gonna give us an update on how things are going? No worries, you are way early in recovery.... this sounds like a good, I think that you said you eat it daily may have sent so some red flags to those of us who are thinking of you! No worries...... it was a nice thought. How are the holidays going? Please update us.....

 

[1905]

Hi you guys, I really didn't mean to sound like I was fishing for low-fat meal ideas for myself. I was just trying to be helpful, and really the post was based on Janet's original post in PE. This time of year, everyone's baking, sharing, and eating goodies at work, and everywhere, so that's where the idea came from. Really, for myself, I don't need ideas, and clearly I have isssues. But, I do have a dr. appointment Thursday at 7pm with a dr I had been to a year and a half ago. I had to leave them a message because they never called me back to let me know IF he would accept me as a patient, or what my co-pay would be, if any. Last time, I didn't have a co-pay. Pasta has 7 grams of protein per serving.