Prosciutto and Smoked Gouda Panini

I love The Biggest Loser.  Well, I love it and hate it...but that's another story.  Just go with me for a minute.

Bob and Jillian talk to the contestants about healthy food choices.  The food these people eat is appalling--in quantity, ingredients...everything!  However, one contestant said she often feeds her 2 kids "pizza because it's $5 and ready quickly."  Bob responded, "I can't compete with that."

He has a good point.  While $5 pizza is obviously not the healthiest option in the world, it's quick, easy, tasty, and inexpensive.

I had a crazy week, so I looked to Cooking Light for some quick and easy meals--and this one fit the bill. This meal might not be inexpensive, but it sure is easy and tasty.  3 ingredients?  Sign me up.

Ready to cook

 Yummy goodness.

This meal probably doesn't reheat well--but since it only takes 3 minutes to assemble, we just made the sandwiches again a few nights later "from scratch." 

And now...the husband is hooked on smoked gouda.  We definitely just bought 1.5 pounds at Sam's Club.  I guess there are worse addictions...

Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins

Forgive the squatty muffin--I made them smaller than called for
in the recipe.

Two Random Facts About Me:
1) I'm a freak about dairy product's expiration dates.

2) I can't let food go to waste.

I opened my fridge and noticed I still had quite a bit of buttermilk left to use--by tomorrow.  Since buttermilk is already pretty nasty, the last thing I want to do is forget about it until it's almost cottage cheese--and then try to get rid of the guilt I feel after throwing away a dollar's worth of buttermilk.

So, I ask the husband if he'd like to take some baked goods into work in the morning.  He says yes: blueberry muffins.

Blueberry muffins? Gross.

Yes, I said gross.  I don't know why, but I do not like blueberries.  I especially dislike them in my muffins. 

In some ways, I welcomed the husband's suggestion.  I don't like blueberry muffins--which means I won't eat them. Brilliant!  (Whenever I make baked goods for the husband, I always end up eating more than he does.  Unless it's bread.)  The problem was, I planned to send them into work--and I always want to taste food before I give it to others.

It was a risk...but I decided to take it.

  Cooking Light's Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

I can't tell you they tasted good, because I didn't try them.  I can tell you that the batter (pre-blueberries) was delicious.

Would I make these again?  Only if the husband requests them, of course.  They're a more "healthy" tasting muffin, which is fine--but some palates prefer the cupcakes that are disguised as muffins. :)

Here's the recipe!

Oatmeal-Buttermilk Pancakes

My husband thinks he has the best wife in the world.

Of course this isn't true.  I have my fair share of flaws that surface daily--so how did I fool him?

Pancakes.  From scratch.

The husband is a carb-lover.  He admits that, if he needed to, he could survive on bread and water alone.  Although not a big eater, he can single-handedly polish off the complimentary bread basket at any dining establishment.  It's not uncommon that, at the end of the meal, the portion that receives the highest praise is the ______________________ (insert bread product here).

When he was training for his marathon a few years ago, I knew he needed to eat substantially more than he had been.  After his long runs with the Fleet Feet training group, he was spent: nutritionally and physically.

Before you go and commend me for being such a thoughtful wife, I must admit that there was an ulterior motive here.  A bit of background: the husband is thin.  Like, we weigh the same amount and he's 6 inches taller than me.  And the thing is--he can eat an exorbitant quantity of food without gaining weight.

Exhibit A: in high school, his efforts to gain weight included drinking cream instead of milk.  Gross.

Exhibit B: before he met me, he ate a #2 at Wendy's for lunch every day.  Later on, he would meet his friends at their favorite bar for bar food and drinks.  Did he gain weight during this time?  Nope.

Exhibit C: while we were engaged, he lived with my parents.  In my family, we have a problem with food: we always make way too much.  My mom also interprets someone with a clean plate as someone who is still hungry--so, when my fiance finished his plate, she would pile on some more.  After 5 months: no weight gained.

Why is this relevant?  Well, as I previously mentioned, the husband was training for a marathon.  Before this, he worked out once a week: Monday night basketball.  He was going from a sedentary lifestyle to one where he ran 15 - 40 miles per week.

So what was the problem?  I'm all for exercise.  My fear? He would lose weight.

I had to take matters into my own hands--so, I did what any wife would have done: I decided to make carbohydrate-rich food that I knew he wouldn't be able to resist.  While the husband typically has excellent portion control, he cannot resist bread products.  I mean, I limit him to 4  biscuits per meal.

Pancakes seemed like a for sure bet.  I wasn't disappointed--while Cooking Light recommends 2 pancakes as a serving, he polished off 5.  Five pancakes, or 2.5 servings.  Success!

Here's the best part: not only did he maintain his weight throughout marathon training--but he thinks that I'm the most stellar wife because I don't take magic pancake powder from a box and add water.  Because he sees measuring spoons and buttermilk out on the counter, he thinks it takes an extreme amount of effort to put these pancakes on the table.

It doesn't.  Let me share the secret with you, so that you too may be dubbed "the best wife ever.


Steps to making the carb-lover in your house happy:
1) Combine oatmeal, vanilla, and buttermilk--let it stand for 10 minutes to soften the oats.

2) Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3) Add egg and oil to buttermilk mixture; mix into dry ingredients.

4) Scoop onto hot griddle/skillet, and cook until golden brown.

And if you want to be like the Williams family over here--top your pancakes with some peanut butter.  They say you're supposed to have a mixture of protein, carbs, and fat after a run, right?  We're just following the rules.

Pros:
*Quick and easy!
*Hearty and filling
*Tasty
*Pantry ingredients (except buttermilk--but I always keep that on hand for buttermilk biscuits, of course)

Cons:
*oats soak for 10 minutes--hard to wait when you're hungry after a run!
*slightly different flavor than "regular" pancakes--not a bad thing, but just a heads up.


Oatmeal-Buttermilk Pancakes
The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook

Prep: 13 minutes
Cook: 3 minutes per batch

1 1/4 cups low-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Combine buttermilk, oats, and vanilla; let stand 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Stir in oil and egg.

2. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife.  Combine flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.  Add oat mixture to flour mixture, stirring until smooth.

3. Spoon about 1/3 cup batter onto a hot nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet.  Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 2 pancakes)

Nutritional Information:
Calories: 287 (22% from fat); Fat: &g (sag 2.1g, mono 1.7g, poly 2.2g); Protein: 10.1g; Carb: 45g; Fiber: 2.1g; Chol: 55mg; Iron 2.5 mg; Sodium: 509 mg; Calc: 116mg

Oven-Fried Chicken

As a California native, fried food has never been a part of my diet.  As someone who has always been interested in health—and a girl whose thighs grow just from looking at food—I don’t eat fried food.  This served me well for 24 years—until I fell in love with a man from the Midwest. 

Allow me to go back in time to my childhood for just a moment.  My mom taught me many wonderful things—if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all (still working on it!), write thank you notes as soon as you receive a gift, life isn’t always fair, etc.  These ideas made sense to me, even at a young age, but there was one point my mom drilled into me didn't make sense until many years later:

          “Men don’t change.”

You know the saying “you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl?”  Well, you can take the boy out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the boy.  My mom was right—men don’t change.  My husband is incredibly easy to please, and always compliments me on what I feed him—but now we’re in Texas and fried food is everywhere!  He’s in heaven.   I see the ecstasy on his face as he bites into chicken-fried steak (which I hadn't even HEARD of until we moved here) and feel torn: I want him to be that happy when eating my food, but I refuse to deep fry food.  What’s a healthy girl to do?

Solution: Cooking Light’s oven-fried chicken.  With a mere 4.4 g of fat (only 1 g of saturated fat), it’s clearly a healthier alternative to fast food fried chicken (which Cooking Light cites at 24 g of fat). 

Sure, KFC has perfected their breading over the years—but this is still a good piece of “fried” chicken, and it doesn't clog your arteries.

This is one of our stand-by recipes--it's tasty, quick, and easy.  Whenever I don’t know what to make, my husband will request this at least 75% of the time.  With only a fraction of the fat of regular fried chicken, I’m happy to oblige.

Here’s the run-down, so you can decide if you want to add this chicken to your dinner repertoire:

Step 1: Marinate chicken in buttermilk for 1 hour

Step 2: Mix flour, cumin, red pepper, white pepper, and salt.

Step 3: Dredge chicken in flour mixture twice, spraying with cooking spray after each 'breading'.

Step 4: Bake

Prep time: 1 hour , 10 minutes (Active prep: 10 minutes)

          This is one of the easiest recipes ever—and while the chicken does need to marinate for an hour, it takes all of 60 seconds to dump buttermilk over chicken in a ziploc baggy. 

Cook time: 30 – 40 minutes

Start to finish: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Pros:

*Inexpensive

*Mostly pantry ingredients—no need to run to the grocery store, unless you don’t have buttermilk on hand.

*Incredibly easy to prepare, and very low-maintenance; while the chicken baked, I whipped up buttermilk biscuits, cooked broccoli and asparagus, sliced cantaloupe, and prepped the strawberries for our strawberry shortcake dessert.  

*kid-friendly—but perhaps cut back on cayenne pepper

*very few dishes!

Cons:

          *does not reheat well—breading gets soggy

                    --Perhaps if you have a toaster oven it would work better?

          *although easy, it does take an hour and a half--not an option when you walk in the door at 7:00

         

NOTE: Parchment paper is essential!  I resisted the last few times I made it, and had an issue each time with the breading coming off the chicken.  Don't skip out on the parchment paper!

          **Also: don't skip spraying the chicken with cooking spray and dredging it in flour again.  I've been lazy in the past, and it just doesn't work as well.  Besides, who wants to skimp on breading???

Oven-Fried Chicken

Cooking Light, April 2002

Marinating in buttermilk results in tender, juicy chicken, and double breading gives a crisp crust. For a smoky taste, use ground chipotle pepper in place of the ground red pepper.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 breast half or 1 thigh and 1 drumstick)

Ingredients

• 3/4  cup  low-fat buttermilk
• 2  chicken breast(about 1 pound), skinned            (I only used chicken breast)
• 2  chicken drumsticks (about 1/2 pound), skinned
• 2  chicken thighs (about 1/2 pound), skinned
• 1/2  cup  all-purpose flour
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  ground red pepper
• 1/4  teaspoon  white pepper
• 1/4  teaspoon  ground cumin       (I use a heaping 1/2 tsp--we love cumin)
• Cooking spray

Preparation

Combine first 4 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; seal. Marinate in refrigerator 1 hour, turning occasionally.

Preheat oven to 450°.

Combine flour, salt, peppers, and cumin in a second large zip-top plastic bag. Remove chicken from first bag, discarding marinade. Add chicken, one piece at a time, to flour mixture, shaking bag to coat chicken. Remove chicken from bag, shaking off excess flour; lightly coat each chicken piece with cooking spray. Return chicken, one piece at a time, to flour mixture, shaking bag to coat chicken. Remove chicken from bag, shaking off excess flour.

Place chicken on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Lightly coat chicken with cooking spray. Bake at 450° for 35 minutes or until done, turning after 20 minutes.

Nutritional Information

Calories:263 (15% from fat)

Fat: 4.4g (sat 1.2g,mono 1.1g,poly 0.9g)

Protein:38.4g

Carbohydrate:14.9g

Fiber:0.8g

Cholesterol:110mg

Iron:2.2mg

Sodium:754mg

Calcium:73mg

Elaine Magee, Cooking Light, APRIL 2002