Category Archives: 30 Pounds/4 Months

Meat and Marinade

by Kathy Nida

Add flavor & tenderize meats with an easy marinade

Easy marinades add flavor

I’m always on the lookout for a good piece of reasonably priced meat, not an easy commodity in today’s market. I keep my eyes on sales at my local stores, but I also wander the aisles at the big discount stores like Costco, where they sell large quantities, great for a big family gathering or lots of people coming over, but less useful when you are living alone or just as a couple.

The thing about meat, whether it’s beef, chicken, or pork, is that it can be frozen. Sometimes I even cut it up into smaller portions before I freeze it, so it’s easy to just pull it out and decide what to do next. If the kids are home, then I can use the whole piece. If it’s just me, then I’m planning dinners and lunches all week.

A marinade is an effective way to add flavor, tenderize inexpensive meats, and add flavor without having to use strange chemicals or undue amounts of salt. Any 1:3 combination of tart ingredients (such as wine vinegar, cider vinegar, lemon juice, lime juice) and oil to your taste (anything from a mild vegetable oil to a strongly flavored olive oil) will make a fine marinade. For convenience, you can marinate cuts of meat inside a plastic bag, and even store it in the freezer until you’re ready to use it.

Source: DepositPhotos, copyright 2016 Wiktory

Fresh marinated pork

With a little weekly planning, you can cook a nice piece of meat on Sunday evening, and then make all your lunches and dinners from that starter ingredient. Most meat can garnish a salad or make a sandwich. It can fill a wrap or a tortilla, or it can make a pile of steaming pasta taste even better with some fresh vegetables and a light sauce. I’ve made leftover grilled meat into tostadas, casseroles, quesadillas, and hearty omelets. In fact, sometimes the “leftover” meal is tastier than the first night. If you marinated the meat, the flavor gets more complex over the next few days, making the meals even tastier.

It just takes a little planning, some careful shopping, a few good recipes, and a flavorful piece of meat. I always marinate the meat the night before. It adds so much flavor with so little work. It’s easy to toss a bag or a covered dish in the fridge on Saturday, pull it out on Sunday and cook it up fresh and hot, and then bag up the leftovers for the rest of the week. You don’t get tired of eating the same thing, because it’s never the same.

For a fresh, tasty marinade that works for beef, chicken, or pork, or even for grilling vegetables with the Sunday meal and maybe fajitas later in the week, try the remarkably easy version in 30 Pounds/4 Months, the natural foods diet and cookbook par excellence. Order the Kindle version from Amazon, or if you prefer a print copy for your kitchen, and leave a message.

Keen on Quinoa

by Kathy Nida

Quinoa salad with cucumber, tomato and feta

My daughter turned into a gourmet cook at about the age of 14. She’s seen every Food Network show ever made. I text her at college when I need a replacement for buttermilk or can’t find the chia seeds at the grocery store. She can tell me the aisle and what’s around it.

I was a fair to middling cook before she started her journey into foodie status. I could cook reasonably well, but depended more on the microwave and dried spices than I do now. I had never used fresh garlic. I hadn’t made spaghetti sauce from scratch, let alone pesto or risotto. I had tried many things when I was first married: hummus, naan bread, even gnocchi. I just wasn’t very good at cooking outside the box.

Then this kid of mine, she bustled into the kitchen, demanded new knives and a few microplanes, and transformed how we all ate. Because of her, I now use almost all fresh spices, made a delicious leek bacon risotto for my school lunches this week, and regularly am searching the store for exotic ingredients.

Quinoa was one thing she made us eat that I’ve appreciated even more now that she’s at college. It cooks up easily, takes on fresh veggies and meat like a boss, and is cute and curly on top of all that. A small amount fills me up, always a plus for those of us with the scale weighing on our minds. It also has a delicious nutty flavor, much better than the rice I relied on in my early cooking years.

Even better, it’s high in protein, which helps vegetarians and vegans reach their nutritional needs, it’s gluten-free for those of us who need to control intake, and it has many useful nutrients like iron and fiber. Amusingly, NASA considers it a perfect food for long space flights, because it provides a high protein to carbohydrate ratio. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I board a space shuttle.

There are many recipes available for quinoa online, but 30 Pounds/4 Months has a particularly tasty version of Curried Quinoa Pilaf with carrots, tomatoes, and a dash of feta. It works for me, being a fan of curry. Honestly, you could pair any meat and vegetables with quinoa and some fresh spices and they would work well together. The next time you reach for a bag of rice at the store, look around a bit and try some quinoa instead. It’s better for you.

For some quinoa tips and that tasty curry recipe, check out 30 Pounds/4 Months, the natural foods diet and cookbook par excellence. Order the Kindle version from Amazon, or if you prefer a print copy for your kitchen, and leave a message.

Not Your Mother’s Garlic Bread

This garlic bread makes a quick, delicious snack, appetizer, or side. This morning I acquired a weird craving for a slice or two of garlic bread, the sort my mother used to make.

But she would make up a whole loaf of the stuff, and she used ingredients I haven’t even looked at in decades: garlic salt or garlic powder, margarine, and that fake Parmesan cheese that you shake out of a cylindrical box covered with bright green metallic stuff. It was good! At least, it was seemed so to a ten-year-old. 😀

While bucketing around town, I picked up a loaf of country-style bread. Everything else was in house.

For a couple of slices…

Preheat the oven’s broiler. If possible, set it on “low,” but it doesn’t matter — you’ll need to keep an eye on it.

You need:

Two slices of fresh French sourdough bread
Two or three tablespoons of butter
Some dried green herbs, such as oregano, marjoram, fines herbes, tarragon, or herbes de Provence
Grated Parmesan cheese
One clove fresh garlic, chopped or minced

The gear

Move an oven rack fairly close to the oven’s broiler element.

Place the butter in a microwavable dish, and add the garlic plus dried herbs to taste. Melt in the microwave — about 10 seconds on high or medium-high.

Using a pastry or basting brush, wipe the herbed garlic butter generously over the bread slices.

Ready for the oven!

Place the bread, buttered-side up, on a baking or broiling pan. I like to line my baking pan with aluminum foil, so I don’t have to wash it. Cover the top of each slice generously with grated Parmesan.

Run the garlic bread under the broiler and let it sit until the cheese is melted and golden. Watch! Do not wander off! This cooks very fast!

This makes a quick, delicious snack, appetizer, or side. I served it with a bit of grilled hamburger and some miscellaneous goodies residing in the fridge: a beet, a tomato, and a ripe pear. So good!

How our lives have changed since our mothers’ day! When I was a girl, I imagined garlic powder and garlic salt were concocted in a factory — which, I guess, they were. It wasn’t until I was grown and married that I first saw a head of garlic. Didn’t have a clue what to do with it!

And come to think of it, I was probably in my teens before I saw a slab of actual Parmesan cheese. I had no idea it was supposed to taste of something other than cardboard.

You can find more 21st-century recipes made of real, unprocessed foods, many of them deliciously diet-friendly, in 30 Pounds/4 Months, a guide to losing two pounds a week while eating like the Queen of Sheba. Find it at Amazon, or order a print copy through the Plain & Simple Press Contact form.

Grill a Red Pepper…and Marinate It, Too

How to grill a red pepper with classic vinaigrette. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? You can find this recipe among a range of easy-to-make salad dressings and sauces in the natural foods diet and cookbook 30 Pounds/4 Months. The other day M’hijito, the King of Millennial Chefs, invited me over to his house for an impromptu spread. He served up some awesome filets broiled with a lemon-roquefort sauce, pretty darned nice. As he was chatting and throwing himself around the kitchen, he handed me a couple of beautiful red peppers, fresh from Costco.

Says he, here’s a great way to cook them on the grill:

Cut out the green top, so you have a hole into the center of the pepper. Don’t slice off the whole top: just carve out the green part. Shake out the seeds or pull them out with your fingers, taking care not to poke a hole in the pepper’s side. Then pour in a little vinaigrette, bottled or your own. Slosh it around in there and then, as you’re cooking the rest of a dinner on the grill, lay the vinaigrette-filled pepper over the fire, too. Roll it around, turn it so it cooks nicely on all sides.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I’m going to try it on those two peppers below, this very evening.

RedBellPeppers

What’s vinaigrette? Classic French dressing: one part something tart (vinegar, lemon juice, lime juice) to three parts oil (olive oil, vegetable oil, or a combination thereof). Add a little salt and pepper. Add some chopped garlic if you like. Add some fresh or dried herbs (basil, marjoram, thyme, tarragon, fines herbes, herbes de provence, whatever you have around). Whip with a fork or, if you had the foresight to mix the ingredients in a lidded jar, tighten the lid and shake to blend.

You can find this recipe among a range of easy-to-make salad dressings and sauces in 30 Pounds/4 Months, the natural foods diet and cookbook par excellence. Order the Kindle version from Amazon, or if you prefer a print copy for your kitchen, and leave a message.

Impromptu Meat & Veggie Pilaf

Feeling in the mood for a one-dish meal? Don’t wanna go to the grocery store or out to a restaurant? If you have some rice in the house, here’s an easy way to toss together a tasty, satisfying dinner.

It takes about a half-hour, all told, depending on how fast you can chop an onion. 😉

An easy, satisfying dinner. Great, simple meal for those times when you just don't feel like going to the grocery store or out to eat!
Here’s what you need for one person w/ some leftovers, or for two not excessively hearty eaters:

• A cup of converted rice (sometimes branded “Uncle Ben’s original”); other types will work
• 2½ cups liquid (can be chicken or beef broth, consomme, water, or a combination of the above; you can add sherry or white wine if desired.
half a yellow or white onion
• A carrot or two (or whatever you have around: celery? bell pepper? other?)
one or two cloves of garlic
If you have some rice in the house, here’s an easy way to toss together a tasty, satisfying dinner. • Some frozen veggies, such as peas, corn, cut-up broccoli or asparagus, mixed vegetables, whatever… I used some frozen broccoli rabi, the baby broccoli that tastes really good. You could use frozen mushrooms, too. Or spinach. Or all of the above. This is a kitchen-sink dish, so use what you have on hand and be imaginative.
• Vegetable or olive oil
• A little sesame oil, if you have it on hand (optional, probably)
• Some leftover cooked meat, cut up in small dice — anything will work

To feed more than a couple of people, just increase the amount of the ingredients proportionately to the expected appetites: multiply by 1.5 or 2 or whatever amount you need.

Peel and coarsely chop half of an onion. Cut the carrot into fairly small dice. Same if you’re using celery. Pour a little oil in the bottom of a deep frying pan with a cover. Turn the heat to medium or medium high and add the onion plus carrot or whatever. Stir gently now and again while these cook to a soft stage and the onion is just beginning to caramelize a little. Add a cup of converted or white rice.

Fast, easy, cheap…and no driving needed.

When the rice is beginning to brown, add the liquid (I happened to have some duck broth from last Thanksgiving — don’t be shy about using what you have on hand). Place the lid on the pan, turn the heat down to medium-low, and set the time for about 15 minutes (if you’re using brown rice, figure more like a half-hour or so).

When the rice is almost cooked but a little liquid remains in the pan, add the leftover meat. Don’t stir it in (stirring rice while it cooks can make it mushy). Just let it sit on the top to warm with as the rice finishes steaming.

Set the timer for another five or ten minutes. Next time it chimes, dinner will be ready!

While our diet/cookbook, 30 Pounds in 4 Months, doesn’t recommend piling rice on your plate every day, the whole idea behind it is that healthy food should be easy to fix, be good to eat, and never break the bank.

Available at Amazon in Kindle format, or in a countertop-friendly print edition from Plain & Simple Press.

25 Spoonfuls of Sugar Makes the Coffee Go Down?

A single Starbuck's coffee drink may contain as much as 25 teaspoons of sugar. And what does all that refined sugar do to you?
Among the day’s headlines comes this gem: A single Starbuck’s “coffee” drink may contain as much as 25 teaspoons of sugar. Ech!

Not surprising.

The main reason I started to put on weight — other than encroaching middle age — was that my pal SDXB and I got into the habit of hanging out at a local gourmet grocery store’s sidewalk cafe, where we would order up a coffee drink and watch the world go by. Even though this usually happened after we had walked upwards of three miles over hilly terrain, the exercise didn’t negate the malign effects of a mocha and a palmier.

Refined sugar is fundamentally toxic. Yeah, an argument can be made that it doesn’t poison you directly and so it can’t be “toxic.” But anything that disturbs your metabolism so that you load on weight, predisposing you to high blood pressure and diabetes — potentially fatal conditions — can’t fairly be called anything other than toxic.

The other day a friend who’d bought a copy of 30 Pounds /4 Months remarked that she decided to try going off sugar cold turkey. She admitted she had quite a craving for sweets but was worried about her slow but steady weight gain.

She said that after about four days of pining for another Starbuck’s or a candy bar, the craving went away. Suddenly, she found she didn’t even want heavily sugared gunk. Fresh fruits began to taste sweet again, and satisfying. Having been mighty skeptical about my sugar fanaticism, she was surprised.

Sugar makes you crave more sweets. In a sense, it’s like an addictive drug: the more of it you consume, the more you want still more.

30 Pounds/4 Months contains four chapters explaining why this and many other fattening facts are so. It helps you to break free of sugar and processed foods, and gives you some moral support while you’re fighting the good fight.

Coffee hint of the day: Starbuck’s plain, unadulterated coffee tastes a lot like battery acid. It needs all that sugar and cream and fake flavoring to be drinkable. When you’re in a Starbuck’s or at any coffee bar that’s peddling sweetened drinks, instead of plain black coffee try a café Americano.

A hit of espresso diluted in hot water, a café Americano tastes the way black coffee is supposed to taste: rich, mellow, and bracing. That’s because espresso beans are usually higher quality than the beans used to make ordinary roadhouse coffee. You can train your taste buds to prefer quality over low-grade, addictive sugary stuff. ♥

If You Live in a Tomato Desert…

Where to find tasty tomatoes that add a fine summery flavor to savory dishes. Many Americans rarely taste a truly glorious tomato, thanks to industrial agriculture innovations. Instead of one of the great joys of life, we get tough-skinned pinkish balls that don’t bruise in transit and taste a lot like cardboard. Unless you have a green thumb, you probably don’t get many chances to taste real, vine-ripened fruits of the tomato vine.

But if you watch carefully and shop in the right stores, you can find one variety that tastes a lot like real tomatoes are supposed to taste. Larger than a cherry tomato but not as big as the ersatz “vine-ripe” type whose single slice would fit on top of a hamburger patty, these are often sold under what appears to be a brand name, Campari tomatoes.

They’re packed in plastic boxes, and they look like this:

Campari tomatoes are typically packed in plastic boxes, and they look like this. Sometimes you’ll find a similar-looking variety called a “cocktail” tomato. These are also fairly convincing, as grocery-store tomatoes go, but they’re not as good as the “Campari” type.

Costco carries Campari tomatoes, as do Whole Foods and, in these parts, a local chain of gourmet grocers. Safeway and sometimes Albertson’s often have cocktail tomatoes. Because they’re fairly small, you need more of them, but they’re definitely worth it.

After slicing tomatoes, sprinkle a very small amount of salt over them and let them sit a few minutes before serving. It richly enhances the “tomato” flavor of tomatoes.

I love tomatoes and include them in many 30 Pounds/4 Months recipes. They’re practically devoid of calories, and they add a fine summery flavor to savory dishes, and even to some sweet ones.

This entry was posted in 30 Pounds/4 Months and tagged best grocery-store tomato, grocery-store tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, how to find good tomatoes on February 13, 2016 by funny.

DIY Fast Food

What’s an easy way to lose weight? Stick to whole foods like fresh meats, fish, veggies, fruits and avoid processed and restaurant foods. It sounds pretty simple. But if you’ve been in a grocery store lately, you know supermarkets stock lots more processed junk, full of salt and sugar, than plain, simple, fresh foods. I can’t say how many friends have looked at me aghast and asked, horror ringing in their voices, “Will I have to cook it?”

😀 Americans have been socialized, thanks to vigorous advertising campaigns, to think cooking a meal is a complicated, time-consuming process.

It’s not. You can make a great meal — one that’s good to eat and good for you — in less time than it takes to drive to a restaurant, wait in line, and buy a bag of fast food. Your own “fast food” tastes better and costs less. Here’s what I had for dinner tonight. It went from fridge to dinner table in about 15 minutes. The secret weapon in this case: a propane barbecue.

Grilled Soy-Ginger Tuna with Quickie Veggies

I had on hand…

A tuna steak that I’d cut into individual servings

A bottle of soy sauce

A bottle of minced ginger

Corn on the cob

An avocado

A few Campari tomatoes

A lemon

A bottle of olive oil (nothing fancy: Costco stuff)

Some blueberries

Some pine nuts

Some shredded Parmesan cheese

Pour a little soy sauce into a bowl just large enough to hold the tuna you plan to serve. Add some minced ginger, to taste. It doesn’t take much — a little ginger goes a long way. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice into the soy & ginger, mix together with a fork, and place the fish into the sauce. Turn it over to soak it on both sides; let it sit while you fire up the grill.

Place the corn on the grill and let it start cooking. Meanwhile, peel and slice the avocado. Arrange it on a dinner plate. Slice the tomatoes and arrange them on or near the avocado. Top with whatever you happen to have that appeals — I had a box of blueberries in the refrigerator, a bottle of shredded Parmesan, and a some pine nuts. But just about anything you please — or nothing — will do the trick.

After a few minutes, turn the corn over. Give it another couple of minutes to cook, and then place the soy-marinated tuna on the grill.

The fish will cook fairly quickly, so keep an eye on it. You’ll have time to sprinkle a little lemon juice over the avocado and tomatoes and top them with a few drops of olive oil. If desired, season with salt and pepper to taste. Turn the corn again when you flip the fish over. Cook the fish until it’s done to your taste — some like it just seared; some prefer it firm and flakey. Try not to overcook.

Et voila! Dinner is served. Flavor the corn with some butter. IMHO a cold beer goes nicely with this meal.

Even with the high-sodium soy sauce, this quick meal contains less salt and far less sugar than anything you can buy at a fast-food restaurant. Tastes a lot better, too.

Check out 30 Pounds/4 Months for more mouth-watering, easy-to-fix recipes that will help you take the pounds off while you eat well and save money. It’s available as a Kindle book or in print from Plain & Simple Press.

DIY fast food image: Shutterstock © 2016 Jacek Chabraszewski

This entry was posted in 30 Pounds/4 Months, Recipes on February 12, 2016 by funny.

Snowed In? Warm up with an easy pot roast

We’re told our friends on the East Coast are getting snowed on again. If you’re cold and feeling harried, try this easy, delicious crockpot roast. It can simmer all day while you’re at work, or you can speed it along by way of nourishing the kids on a snow day. Serve it over rice and it shouldn’t put on too many pounds:

La Maya’s Port-laced Crockpot Roast

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: low 8 to 10 hours, or high 4 to 5 hours
Makes 8 to 10 servings

A classic pot roast made easy
You Need:

2½- to 3-pound beef chuck roast

1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)

1/2 cup port wine

8-ounce box or can of tomato sauce, preferably a low-salt brand such as Pomí

3 Tbsp quick-cooking tapioca

1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp dried thyme, crushed (or use up to a Tbsp fresh thyme)

1 tsp dried oregano or marjoram (or up to a Tbsp fresh herbs)

2 cloves garlic, minced

The Douro Valley — Home of port wine.

Trim any excess fat from meat. If needed, cut the roast to fit your slow cooker. Place the meat in the crockpot.

Make a cooking stock by combining the cut-up onion, port, tomato sauce, tapioca, Worcestershire sauce, herbs, and garlic. Pour this combination over the meat.

Cover and cook on the cooker’s low-heat setting for 8 to 10 hours, or on high-heat setting for 4 to 5 hours.

Transfer the cooked meat to a serving dish. Skim fat from gravy. Pass gravy with the roast and serve with pasta, potatoes, or rice.

Enjoy! And stay warm.

This is one of over a hundred delicious and good-for-you recipes in 30 Pounds/ 4 Months, your guide to losing weight while eating like the Queen of Sheba. Find the Kindle version at Amazon or buy a print copy direct from Plain & Simple Press.

Images:
Classic pot roast made easy: Shutterstock. © 2016 bolsher
Pot roast: Mark Miller (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Douro Valley: Bruno Rodrigues, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3383426

La Maya’s Port-laced Crockpot Roast

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Category Archives: 30 Pounds/4 Months

Meat and Marinade

Keen on Quinoa

Not Your Mother’s Garlic Bread

Popover Joy!

Grill a Red Pepper…and Marinate It, Too

Impromptu Meat & Veggie Pilaf

25 Spoonfuls of Sugar Makes the Coffee Go Down?

If You Live in a Tomato Desert…

DIY Fast Food

Grilled Soy-Ginger Tuna with Quickie Veggies

Snowed In? Warm up with an easy pot roast