Creatively cooking with constraints.

So the diet has left me missing large meals. I am not starving by any means but I do get that "oh so very full" feeling and maybe that is a good thing. Many times I go past the osvf feeling and go straight to the "oh so very uncomfortable" feeling. So I have been experimenting with low cal ingredients to make a larger and satisfying meal. By experiment I mean I look around my kitchen say I like this, this and this. Now will they taste fine together. I tend to stick with variations on a theme. I like recipes yet I like to do my own thing. Today I am trying my hand at a baked pasta dish. I added some chicken and orange peppers and it turned out pretty good. It's pretty simple.

Ingredients:
1 small chicken breast
1/2 cup of pasta (whatever you want I like the spiral kind)
1/2 cup sauce (I improv mine with canned tomato's but you can use what you want)
1/4 cup grated cheese (I like cheddar)
1/4 an orange pepper
Spices (Your choice I used Sage, Basil, Ground Mustard, Majoram Leaves, Black pepper and oregano)

Bake the chicken breast, sprinkle sage, basil, ground mustard and marjoram on the chicken. It doesn't have to be fully done it will finish baking in the dish. When the chicken is well on it's way to being done take it out and dice it up into small piece and put into a small baking dish.

Boil the pasta till it just starts boiling it will finish cooking in the dish. Drain the pasta and add to the chicken. Dice the orange pepper and add it to the baking dish. Add about 2 spoon fulls of sauce over the chicken, pasta and peppers sprinkle a small amount of the cheese with that then add black pepper and oregano. Mix it all together in the dish then add the rest of the sauce over the top of everything a little more black pepper and oregano as well as the rest of your cheese.

Put in the oven at 350 for about 10-15 minutes. It serves about two and is roughly 300 calories a serving (or 600 if you eat the whole thing) and very yummy.

I steam up about a hand full of veggies to go with and it makes for a good meal and pretty low cal and easy. I am sure every time I do this I will do it differently depending what is in my fridge. :)

I look at it this way it was easy and quick. Two things I like in my cooking. I like to get right to the eating.

Screw Flanders or Bon Appetit

Adventures in Cooking

So I was hungry for stuffed peppers, actually I was wanting to try them I had never had one before so I went on line to find some recipes. I was really disappointed I really couldn't find any that appealed to me so I said fuck it I can make my own. So I did. They were so good. I thought I would share my findings.

Ok for two large peppers I would say that it serves two cause I had to put the other in the fridge cause I was full.


Two Large Peppers of your choice (I am partial to Yellow or Orange).
One large chicken breast.
One Roma Tomato
One green Onion
One red potato
Garlic
Fresh Basil Leaves2-3
Fresh oregano
Olive Oil
White wine
Feta
Mozzarella
Salt and Pepper

Ok First I made an aluminium foil bowl like container in it I put the potato diced, Olive Oil, chopped garlic and S&P. I closed the aluminium foil to create a sealed bag and threw that on the grill for about 25 min. I then chopped up the green onion, more garlic, basil, tomato and oregano and put that all into a sauce pan with olive oil and the wine on a medium heat and let cook into a sauce. Stir it every once in a while. Then seed the Peppers and put the chicken on the grill.
about 5 minutes later put the peppers on the grill. When the potatoes and chicken are done take everything off the grill. Preheat the oven to 350. tear the chicken apart. in two bowls add equal amounts of the chicken, potatoes, feta and the sauce, then mix. Then stuff it all into the peppers. Stand them up in a baking dish and add Mozzarella on top. Let bake in oven for 5-8 minutes and then eat.

This was all very rough I didn't measure anything so these are guesses. I thought it was really good and will add this to my cooking rotation. Let me know if anyone else tries this.

And anyone else with fun summer dishes let me know.

Screw Flanders... or Bon Appetit