I stopped at the library today, and as I always do, I scanned the cookbook section of their used book sale. They get some turnover, but I often see the same books. But once in a while a low-fat cookbook shows up. Often they are older, not very interesting ones. Today I scored big, and they had three interesting looking low-fat cookbooks.
The first one was titled Busy People’s Low Fat Cookbook. This one looks pretty cool. It has recipes that are fast, and use a limited number of ingredients. They even flag the recipes as to whether budget friendly or not.
The next cookbook was titled Skinny Pasta. I love good pasta, so I was excited to find a low-fat pasta cookbook!
The third cookbook was Low-Fat Cooking On The Grill. This one has some delicious looking pictures. I hope they taste half as good as they look.
My wife and I both love good clam chowder. On our vacation driving through New England, and then back to Seattle, we had many different clam chowders. Some were great, and some were just okay. But I decided to see if I could make a low fat clam chowder. I didn’t even know if it was possible since generally clam chowder has a lot of cream, and butter and stuff. But when I searched, I found a recipe that sounded promising. It was okay as is, but I thought it could be better. So I began tweaking it. I actually combined it with another recipe I had for clam chowder. The result was a very good clam chowder while retaining it’s low fat quality. Give it a shot. If you like clam chowder, I think you will like it.
Ingredients:
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup onions, finely diced
1 cup celery, finely diced
1/2 cup flour
4 cans chopped clams (6 1/2 oz)
2 (8-oz) bottles clam juice
1 oz turkey bacon, diced
1 cup of 2% milk
1 tsp salt
1 dash pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp lemon juice
Directions:
Place diced potatoes in large sauce pan and cover with cold water. Bring potatoes to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and let cook for 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and set aside.
Once the potatoes are simmering, place butter in another saucepan, and heat over medium heat. Add the celery and onions, and stir; sauté until tender, stirring often, about 4 minutes. Stir in the flour. Reduce heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
In the large saucepan that had the potatoes, add the bottled calm juice, and the clam juice from the canned clams. Add in the diced bacon, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 minute. Gradually whisk the clam juice/bacon into the vegetable/flour mixture until smooth. Heat over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes, milk, and salt, pepper, thyme, sugar, lemon juice. Stir often, until heated through. Stir in clams and heat for about 1 minute.
Serve.
I just got back from vacation. Actually I had two vacations close together. The first vacation was a week long driving trip around New England. We ate in nice restaurants almost every night, eating things like clam chowder, and lobster. Yummy! But part of this was also so I could write about the various restaurants for my travel blog.
Then about two weeks after that we headed off to Seattle for about 2 1/2 weeks to visit family. Some meals were at restaurants eating local fare such as fish & chips, clam chowder, and also at fast food restaurants that we don’t have at home like Jack In The Box. But then other meals were with family, eating whatever they made. So basically, the low-fat diet went out the window for a while. I weighed myself last night and weight 178. I forgot to weight myself this morning, but I am guessing the scale would have said about 176. I gained about 8-10 pounds.
But I am home again. So I am back to eating low fat again. I ate a healthy choice meal for breakfast, and will eat another one for lunch. Also, I will be able to get back to my regular workouts. Hopefully the weight will come off and fast as it went on.
I started my weight-loss project months ago. My goal was to lower my body fat. I did it by simply eating low-fat healthy foods and exercising. My weight at the start was in the mid 180s, and this morning I weighted in at 167 pounds! I just got back from vacation on which I probably could have eaten a lot healthier, but I didn’t lose to much ground. I am still working on getting the six-pack abs.
My BEFORE pic is dated January 7, 2007.
My AFTER pics are May 31st, 2007 (10 minutes ago):
If a have good quality salmon, my prefered method of cooking is baking it with a little butter (or buttery spray) and lemon juice. I don’t like adding much that will cover/change the salmon taste. But I while back I bought a bag of frozen salmon filets that just weren’t as good as fresh salmon. So I would use them with other recipes. This is one of the recipes I liked:
Sour Cream Dill Sauce:
1/2 Cup fat-free sour cream
1 tsp. dried dill
1 Ttsp. lemon juice
1/4 shallot, minced
dash cayenne pepper
salt to taste
pepper to taste
Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl.
Pan Seared Salmon:
1/2 lb. salmon filet or steak per person
Extra virgin olive oil spray
Spray not-stick skillet with olive oil. Heat skillet over medium heat. Cook salmon steaks, skin side down, in pan for 5 minutes. Using spatula, turn steaks over and cook for another 3 minutes. If salmon not cooked through, turn again, and cook till done. Place cooked salmon on a plate. Top with Sour Cream Dill Sauce.
