The Dinner Project - Taco Salad

For this Dinner Project post I'm going back to the meal that started this all. The taco salad that made me think "I need to take a picture of this!"

For our taco salads we have little or no carbie stuff. Author will sometimes have a few light tortilla chips with his but that is about it. Mostly, it is all about the meat and veg for me though we do have beans and rice as well.

We start with extra lean ground beef, no more than 5% fat. We get it from a place that grinds it's own beef and doesn't add any of that disgusting "pink slime" filler that is chemically treated. (If you don't know about this stuff I suggest you look it up. Foul! And in almost every bit of ground beef on the market!) Someday I'd like to grind my own beef but this supplier is fine until then. I cook the beef in salsa. Nom! Since Monkey has an allergy to fresh tomato, the salsa has to be blended smooth and cooked completely. (We have no idea why this works for him but is the only way he can eat tomato products without severe nausea/vomiting and hives.) As a result, I usually add some Anaheim peppers and

onions to give it a little more texture.

For the veg, I saute a bunch of veg, usually red and green peppers, onions and mushrooms. Then the fresh salad fixings. We usually go though whole head of lettuce for the three of us. I like a nice mix of butter and red leaf lettuce. I'm the only one who eats fresh tomatoes but, during the season, I use a ton of them! I also save a little of the salsa before blending it for Monkey so I can add it to my salad. We top off the veg with some olives and, sometimes, roasted green chili.

The fatty bits: Ideally we would have fresh guacamole but good avocados are 1) difficult to find in Oregon and 2) difficult to fit into a weight loss plan. Sometimes we find a good one and can't resist adding a tablespoon to our taco salad night. Avocados are the one thing I miss right now. There are no "light" avocados. To make up for the lack of creamy green goodness we do add sour cream. None of that "light" crap. I have yet to find a light sour cream that doesn't taste like paste. I do however use a very good Tillamook reduced-fat cheese. You still can't use much but an ounce of this can go a long way.

So here is the plate that started my interest in documenting my favorite dinners. Look at how beautiful! Look at how much food! While eating my amazing taco salad I don't feel deprived of quantity or taste. I can be a foodie and still lose the extra weight!

The dinner project - Strawberry milkshake

I know I call this "The Dinner Project" but what is dinner with out a little desert every now and then?

It is summer and we have a huge amount of strawberries showing up in our farmer's markets. We are eating about a 1/2 flat (that is 6 pints) a week. Well, I say "week" but what I really mean is "between Saturday (market day) and, at the latest, Tuesday." None of the berries last past that anyway. So how do we pack away that many berries? Aside from just stuffing our mouths with them we make shakes! This is one of those, "surprised I'm still losing weight" kind of thinks. I've found it is all about the right choices though. I will make some ice cream suggestions. We use Breyer's Fat Free Vanilla Ice Cream or Umpqua Nonfat Frozen Vanilla Yogurt. (I think Umpqua is a NW thing.) Reddi Whip has a very nice Fat Free whipped cream for a little extra on top. The most important thing is very ripe strawberries. If you can find Hood strawberries, an Oregon specialty, then you are in for a real treat. They are usually a June thing but, because of our late start to summer this year, we are getting them in abundance in July.

The basic recipe for the strawberry milkshake shown in the picture below is 1 cup of ice cream/frozen yogurt and 1 & 1/2 cup of Hood strawberries. The strawberries were so juicy that I didn't need to thin the shake down with a tablespoon of milk like I sometimes do. The trick to a thick and tasty milkshake is speed. Have everything ready before you combine and do short, fast bursts of blending. Don't take too long trying to get it perfectly smooth. You'll just end up with a soupy mess. (I knew managing that ice cream shop in college would pay off in the end!)

My amazing summer treat that I can still eat and be healthy!

The Dinner Project - Pizza

My first post in The Dinner Project is, by far, my favorite dinner. I mean, who doesn't love pizza?! It is a family favorite as well. My household excitedly repeats "Ooo! Pizza Night!!" when they see it on the menu at the beginning of the week. We do individual pizzas so we can make exactly what we each want.

Admittedly, this one can be a bit time consuming, especially if you aren't familiar with making basic bread dough. However, you can make this dough ahead and keep in the fridge for a few days or freeze it for a couple weeks. Just make sure to wrap it well so it doesn't dry out and leave plenty of time for it to get back to room temp before you make your pizza crust. Once you get the hang of it, making this simple bread dough is pretty easy. (If you have a good mixer with a bread hook it is a snap!)

This recipe for the basic bread dough that makes great pizza dough is a slightly modified version from a recipe in "The Naked Chef Takes Off" by Jamie Oliver. (I LOVE Jamie!!!) This recipe will make 3-4 individual pizzas or one big family-sized pizza. The three of us always have leftovers for lunch the next day. I don't have a pizza stone so we use our cast-iron skillets to bake our pizzas. You don't need either of those though. This will work just fine on a good baking sheet. We each like different thickness of crust so the different sizes of our skillets work well.

Basic Bread Dough:

1/2 lb whole wheat flour

1/2 lb unbleached white flour

1 cup warm water (not hot or cold as it will kill your yeast!)

3/4oz active dry yeast (1 and 1/2 envelopes of the 1/4oz dry yeast packets or, when taking from a jar, it is 3 3/8 tsp. If using fresh yeast then it is 1oz.)

1 tbsp sugar (I use raw sugar but you can use honey too.)

1 tbsp salt

Directions:

Weigh out your flour and set aside. (When baking, measuring flour by weight is much better. If you plan on making bread regularly I strongly suggest getting a kitchen scale. They are about $20 for a decent one at any

kitchen store. It has made me much more successful in baking!)

In a mixing bowl, combine water, yeast and sugar. The yeast should start to foam up a little after a minute or so. This is called "proofing." Basically, you are making sure your yeast is good. If it doesn't foam up then your yeast is too old/dead and your bread will not turn out. Add the salt to the mixture and stir until dissolved.

Now you are going to combine the yeast mixture with the flour. There are a few ways to do this. I use my mixer with a bread hook and slowly add the flour. Some people mix in the flour slowly to the yeast mixing bowl using their hand. (I've done that before too.) The fancy way is to make a little pile of flour on your counter, create a little bowl in the center, pour the yeast mixture into the little well made into the flour pile. You then slowly incorporate the two. I suck at doing this and always make a huge mess. Don't worry if you don't do this. Your bread will turn out fine being mixed in a bowl.

Keep mixing until you start to get a nice, elastic ball of dough. You may have to add a little more water if it looks a little dry and flaky or a bit more flour if it looks too sticky. Different kinds of flour and the temp/humidity will effect this so you just have to eyeball it each time. If you are using a mixer with a bread hook then just let it keep mixing. The bread hook will do all the kneading for you. If you are doing it by hand then plop that beautiful lump out onto a floured surface and KNEAD! (I won't go into proper kneading here. There are plenty of instructional videos on the web to help you along.) Giving your bread a good knead is very important for creating that fluffy texture. Not enough kneading means tough bread.

Set aside your bread dough, in a floured bowl, in a warm place with a damp cloth covering it to rise. For first rise should take an hour or two for the bread to double in size. Once it has done that, punch it down, knead it well again and place it back in the bowl for second rise. The second rise always takes less time. (Mine takes about 30 minutes usually but on really cold days it can take longer.) Punch it down, knead it a little and then you are ready to make your pizza crust.

I usually sprinkle some fine ground cornmeal on my pan but that is just optional. I'm not going to tell you how shape your dough because, to be honest, I kind of suck at it myself. I do my best and it always comes out good.

Put on your toppings and bake at 450 for about 25-30 minutes. If you make your crust really thick it will take longer. If you make your crust paper thin it will be done quickly so check often!

The sky is the limit with homemade pizza toppings. We try to keep it healthy so there are lots of veg and lean meat. We use skim mozzarella cheese and keep it to a couple ounces each. We plan adding some different cheeses as toppings this summer. The most popular toppings in my house include lean Canadian bacon, fresh basil, baby spinach, mushrooms, green peppers, roasted garlic, artichoke hearts (not marinated in oil) and olives. For sauce we each have our own favorites. I use a tablespoon of basil pesto. Monkey uses a mix of spaghetti sauce and feta dressing. Author uses straight up red pizza sauce. If we have it, Monkey and I will sometimes use a touch of truffle oil. (REAL truffle oil, not that chemical shit.) We all keep it very light since the best sauces are never low in fat. We usually sprinkle a little fancy salt and maybe some dried parsley or oregano to finish it off.

Dinner is Ready!

(This is my pizza. I forgot to take a picture before I started eating! It has pesto sauce, mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, Canadian bacon, spinach and a couple mushrooms. It is finished with some Sel Gris (French gray salt) and dried oregano.)

The Dinner Project

I am a foodie. I love to eat. I love good food, fancy and simple. I love to cook even though my skills are pretty down-home.

However, I also have a problem with food. Years of out of control Binge Eating Disorder added with a typical American diet/lifestyle made me morbidly obese. I was lucky enough to hit my mid-thirties with no sign of obesity related diseases but I knew it was only a matter of time before my luck would run out. Thankfully, I've managed to get what I needed to deal with my eating disorder and get my weight down before I lose my health. Last January I started both a cognitive behavioral therapy program and Weight Watchers Online. To date I have lost 51lb.

The other night I was sitting down for dinner, looking at this amazing taco salad that I had fixed my family, and thought "Why didn't I realize I could be healthy and still eat this good!" I grew up going on diet after bland diet, wishing I could just eat something that had some kind of taste. In the end, I always broke my diet because I missed the joy in eating good food. I still see images in the media of people on diets eating plain celery sticks and looking longingly at some one else's plate. Or, even worse, dieters chowing down daily on prepared meals filled with salt and chemicals. (Not to say I don't pop in a frozen lunch every once in awhile but it is pretty rare.) We are told that dieting is either suffering or replacing real food with some synthetic food alternative.

The truth is eating healthy and eating well really go hand in hand. Even when you are living this truth it can be easy to forget. I eat better now than I ever have in my life! I still get shocked at the dinner table sometimes when I realize how much I've already lost while still eating great. To remind myself and share it with the interwebs, I have decided to start The Dinner Project on my blog. I will post a picture and the recipe for my favorite meal of the week. (I'd love to do it almost daily but that would be a lot of work!) Mostly I am doing this to remind myself but I hope some one out there stumbles upon one of my dinner posts, gives the recipe a try and enjoys a healthy, tasty meal.

Let's eat!