Low Carb Noodles: Yes, They Do Exist

February 28th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Food Review - (2 Comments)

I have been telling my weight loss patients about these Tofu Shirataki noodles for some time now.

They are a good alternative if you are working on weight loss and have already eaten enough carbs for the day (or, maybe you want to save room for a dinner roll or sweet treat). These noodles have only 5 g of carbohydrates (including 2 g fiber). Don’t get me wrong… it’s important to have healthy carbs in your day even when trying to lose weight. I am not a promoter of the Atkins diet.

Anyway, I ate them the other day, and was not a huge fan. However, Mr. Triathlete said he liked them. Maybe it is the texture that I have a problem with. The noodles are made from tofu and a tiny bit of yam flour. That’s it. They are only 40 calories for the whole bag. They taste just fine, but are a little slippery and slightly chewy. I would recommend using a thicker sauce with the noodles. Perhaps a healthier cheese sauce like Parmesan and garlic. We tried to make them with an Asian flair, and our sauce was just too thin and made the noodles even more slippery. No good.

As you can see, the noodles look just like regular pasta. I guess you will just have to taste them to see if you like them!

 

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Make Your Own Latte… Get A Milk Frother

February 27th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Food Review - (1 Comments)

I just love it when my coffee has some frothed foamy milk on top. It makes it taste more like I get whip cream on my coffee, but foamed milk is much healthier. I haven’t tried frothing soy milk yet, but I think it will be even more delicious.

I purchased the little Aerolatte milk frother for only $14 on Amazon.

Even though it is cheap, it still does the job. It takes about 10 seconds to create the foam. And it will save me money in the future. I won’t go to Starbuck’s as much and pay $2 for them to make me steamed and foamed milk!

Well, that’s my quick tip for today. I am off to watch the countdown to the Oscar’s red carpet, and maybe drink my own homemade latter or cappuccino.

 

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Sweet and Spicy Grilled Shrimp

February 22nd, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Recipes - (3 Comments)

I was in the mood to cook something delicious yesterday because Mr Triathlete was coming back from being out of town for a while. We all know what it’s like cooking for one. I don’t go to much trouble to make just myself anything fancy because no one else can appreciate it.

Anyway, I found this sweet and spicy “Mexican” grilled shrimp recipe on Southern Living. I modified it a little because I couldn’t find tamarind paste, and I was making a smaller portion.

Sweet and Spicy Grilled Shrimp
Makes 2 Servings

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. Shrimp, peeled and de-veined, tails on or off
  • about 10 skewers if you are using a grill; if you are using a grill pan skewers are optional
  • 1/4 C. packed brown sugar
  • 5 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced
  • 1 Tbsp. adobo sauce
  • 1 Tbsp. water
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 2 Tbsp. prune or date puree
  • 2 tsp. Honey
  • 1 tsp. olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Directions:

1. To make the sauce, add the last 9 ingredients to a small saucepan. Heat over low heat until the brown sugar is dissolved and the sauce reduced slightly.

2. Heat grill pan over medium heat. Add prepared shrimp on to grill pan and brush with sauce. Turn the shrimp over halfway through (about 4 minutes on each side). As soon as the shrimp become a little pink and curl up a little, they are done.

Making these shrimp made me realize I need an actual grill. The pan started to smoke quite a bit towards the end of cooking because the sauce was getting on the pan. Pretty soon my small apartment began to fill up with a sweet smoky smell. One of these days…

Anyway, we had the shrimp with kale (cooked with some onions and 1 leftover chicken sausage link) and a glass of wine. It has been so nice out lately, so the shrimp made me feel like spring was here!

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Taco Bell and Frozen Yogurt

February 20th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Food Review - (1 Comments)

By now everyone knows about the big Taco Bell shocker: the meat is not 100% meat. I think we all knew that before the story broke anyway. Here is the list of ingredients that are combined with the beef:

  1. Water
  2. Isolated oat product aka fiber
  3. Salt
  4. Chili pepper
  5. Onion powder
  6. Tomato powder
  7. Oats (wheat)
  8. Soy lecithin
  9. Sugar
  10. Spices
  11. Maltodextrin (a polysaccharide which is a carbohydrate)
  12. Soybean oil
  13. Garlic powder
  14. Autolyzed yeast extract (a flavor enhancer; contains some MSG)
  15. Citric acid, caramel color
  16. Cocoa powder
  17. Silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent)
  18. Natural flavors
  19. Yeast
  20. Modified corn starch
  21. Natural smoke flavor
  22. Salt
  23. Sodium phosphate (preservative)
  24. Less than 2% of beef broth
  25. Potassium phosphate
  26. Potassium lactate (more preservatives)

The funny thing is there are quite a bit of oats in the meat filling. None of these ingredients really scare me away, but all 27 ingredients are combined I don’t like the processed barely food anymore product. Anyway, I just thought it was funny because my sister had a chicken soft taco as a snack today. I can see how people can’t resist when Taco Bell only cost $1.


So, Taco Bell was my sister’s snack and frozen yogurt was my snack during an afternoon of shopping. The yogurt was the tart yogurt from Freshens. I was thinking it was a fairly healthy choice because most of those tart yogurts have very little added sugars. Well, I may have been wrong. I checked the nutrition info and a 7 oz. cup is still 240 calories and 35 grams of sugar! I would have been better off with Taco Bell. I guess I was just used to all the healthier frozen yogurt places that have the tart yogurt. Ugh. I was a fooled consumer once again. Frozen yogurt is not always a healthy choice.

Anyway, the psycho baker was at it again tonight and made homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches.

Sorry for the camera pic.

These were seriously sinful and delicious. I have to find out her recipe for the chocolate chip cookie part because they were the best chocolate chip cookies I have had. And I am really not a big fan of chocolate chip cookies, but these hit the spot!

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Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Recipes - (0 Comments)

Valentine’s Day is not one of my favorite Holidays although it is nice and sweet. Any excuse to celebrate something is a happy time.

So, I woke up this morning to a knock on the door. Apparently someone sent me flowers, but I am still not exactly sure who. I am almost positive it was my Mom because she asked for my address a few days ago. But, the card was from some random family that I don’t know and the package did have my name on it. Oh well. They are pretty flowers!

My Mom aka the psycho Holiday baker was at it again for Valentine’s Day. Baking up a storm. Poor thing ended up spilling a few pounds of sugar all over the floor. Sucks.

Here efforts weren’t wasted because she made excellent sugar cookies.

She made some pretty purple frosting cookies too. And she made light and fluffy oatmeal cookies with frosting. Who knew oatmeal cookies could be light and airy!? I am sure she just used extra butter to get this result…

Anyway, I am not sure about my Valentine’s Day dinner plans, but I think Mr Triathlete and I will make a tasty dinner!

Here are some last minute healthy dinner/dessert ideas:

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Food Review: What Not To Buy

February 13th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Food Review - (1 Comments)

I bought this Greek yogurt veggie dip made by Marzetti. I was dying for something new, healthy, and delicious to dip my veggies in.

I figured this would be perfect because Greek yogurt has a similar taste to sour cream. Well, it is disgusting. Why? Because they put fish oil in it, and all you taste is the fish oil! One serving contains 200 mg of omega 3s. That’s wonderful and healthy, but if you can’t stomach the food, no one is going to eat it! It seriously taste like some opened one of my fish oil capsules and dumped it into the dip. Gross. It’s funny because I would think the company would have consumer tests before putting the product on the shelves.

I can almost taste the spinach artichoke flavor, so this dip would be very tasty and a good healthy veggie dip if there was no fish oil. And it’s only 60 calories and 4.5 g fat per 2 TBSP. One other drawback is that is does have quite a bit of sodium per serving (almost 200 mg). And if you eat two or three servings, that is too much sodium.

Bottom Line: I wanted my fellow healthy peeps to be aware of this nastiness so that you don’t waste $3 or $4 like I did.

Food in Aruba: Part 2

February 10th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Food Review - (2 Comments)

Traditional Aruban foods are goat, stews, maize, and fish.

Poor little goat. They are everywhere in Aruba. They seem to eat everything–a lot of dried grass and cacti. I figure that is what goat must taste like.

Anyway, we tried out more traditional Aruban food at Queen’s restaurant.

Pictured above is a beef stew with traditional rice and beans (that were very tasty!), plantains, and cauliflower.

This one is the same except it was a chicken dish called keshi yena. The chicken seemed to be stewed with capers and cashews, and it was covered in gouda cheese.

Finally, we tried the delicious pan bati which is similar to a pancake mix, but with more cornmeal and spices. This one seemed to be fried. There was a sauce on the side that was vinegar based with a small amount of habanero pepper.

We didn’t try any other traditional Aruban foods, but I am sure there are other dishes I am unaware of. There are a variety of restaurants on the island, but only one type of grocery store–all run by the Chinese! Pretty funny. I wonder how the Chinese came up with idea of opening grocery stores on a small Caribbean island…

One last thing: I can’t forget about lunch at Dushi Bagels (I know–funny name!). The word dushi means “sweet”, “sweetie”, “precious” in Papiamento (Aruba’s native language). Anyway, it was a nice place to eat bagels outside and watch the birds and not have to pay $20 for one meal. And yes, most restaurants are a little more expensive in Aruba ($18-$30 for an entree).

Until next vacation…

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Food in Aruba: Part 1

February 7th, 2011 | Posted by Nicole in Food Review - (2 Comments)

Me and my dushi (means “sweet” or “sweetie”) went to Aruba with his Mom and her friend. When you think of going to a warm weather place you think of fresh produce, and seafood. There was plenty of fresh fish (we ate a lot of grouper), but Aruba is a desert-like island and does not grow much of its own produce. Most everything is imported except Balashi beer, fish, goat, and a few local fruits.

Balashi Beer and Amstel Bright (not Amstel Light in Aruba). Mr Triathlete says the Amstel Bright tastes like a cheap watered down American beer, and the Balashi tastes better and like it has less water added. I don’t like many beers so, I left that to him. Tortilla chips (we ate a lot of these with homemade pico de gallo) and bagels in the background.

Blackened Grouper

Blackened Mahi Mahi (another local fish)

Delicious salad at Fishes and More

Vanilla ice cream with bits of coconut at Fishes and More. Who knew a tiny bit of coconut can make ice cream so delicious!

More blackened grouper! This was at Wacky Wahoo’s which is rated #1 in Aruba by Tripadvisor, so of course we had to go and see what it was all about.

The creamy seafood soup was the best thing we had by far–we all agreed. It has fennel, saffron, cream, and all kinds of seafood in it. I guess for $8 it better be delicious. But, the fish we had was cooked very well and just melted in your mouth. There was also this mysterious green cheese on one of the grouper dishes. I have no idea how it is green. It was supposed to be gouda cheese.

We made a few dinners at the house we rented. The grocery stores did not have much of a selection, so the cooking was a little limited. One night we made a seafood pasta with scallops. We had some brie cheese and carrot sticks as an appetizer–a little silly. Another night we cooked grouper. I told you… a lot of grouper.

And then there were the snacks…

We discovered these yummy corn coated peanuts (garden flavor aka salt).

Almond thin cookies!

Nutella knock-off hazelnut spread (I think the label said it only had 3% hazelnuts) with Holland-something cookies.

Then there was the awful ice cream. We picked it out thinking it was chocolate chip, right? No way–it was licorice ice cream. The most disgusting thing ever. We also picked out cinnamon ice cream which actually tasted more like red hots. Finally, we chose a good ice cream–maple syrup waffle flavor.

We packed our lunch a few times at the beach…


Traditional Aruban food to be continued…

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