My Bizzy Kitchen

From the kitchen of the Biggest Diabetic Loser: a healthy balance of food and exercise. . . while keeping blood sugars normal!

Archive for the category “Appetizers”

The Perfect Hard Boiled Egg

I cannot tell you how happy we are to be home!  When Tony was in the hospital and slept, we usually turned all the lights off and turned the t.v. down – at least now when he’s resting I can do laundry and some household chores. :D

So I am trying to put a meal plan together for the week and its a tough one.  Problem number one: low fiber = no brown rice, no whole wheat bread, no whole fruit or vegetables.  Problem two: he doesn’t really have a taste for anything.

So my plan is to have “choices” for him to chose from.  One of his favorite things is egg salad.  It doesn’t make an appearance very often because I don’t like it (along with tuna noodle casserole, which I plan to make him for next week!) and because I’ve probably only cooked hard boiled eggs perfectly about twice in my life.

I’ve done the vinegar trick to the water so you don’t get that unsightly green “ring” around the yolk.  I’ve boiled the eggs, then removed them off the heat with a lid on for 15 minutes.  But almost every time, no matter what method I did, the egg white would come off when I went to peel the eggs – especially frustrating when I am trying to make pretty deviled eggs for the holidays!

I saw this recipe earlier in the week, wrote down the instructions, and quickly forgot where I found it.  I promise I’ll find it so I can give proper credit!

Hard Boiled Eggs

  • 3 eggs (or however many you want)
  • tap water, enough to cover the eggs by one inch

Carefully put the eggs in a pot and cover with tap water until covered by an inch.  Bring to a boil, once it boils, set your timer for 10 minutes.  At the last minute, put water and a cup of ice in a bowl – once the 10 minute buzzer goes off, transfer to the cold water bath.  And leave them alone.  They have to come back to room temperature.

it helps to have fresh eggs too!

once the eggs cooled, I dried them and put them in a bowl and put them in the fridge

Now I had to come up with an egg salad recipe – maybe this is typical, but I am not sure – is there diced pickles in egg salad?

Simple Egg Salad for Two

(129 calories, 9.1 fat, 2.3 carbs, 0 fiber and 9.6 protein = 3 pointsplus)

  • 3 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped
  • 2 teaspoons real mayo
  • 1 teaspoon sweet pickle juice (I added this because it was a tad thick)
  • 1 stalk celery, chopped finely
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried mustard
  • pinch of sea slat
  • cracked pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

Tony and I both like finely chopped celery, because any thicker, even though we know there are no onions, we both are like "is that an onion?!"

perfectly peeled!

No ring!  I served them on Whole Wheat Ritz Crackers – 5 crackers are 2 points, but guess what?  4 crackers are only 1 point!

4 points - not a bad snack!

And guess what?  I loved it.  I think if I were going to make these just for me, I would add crushed red pepper or sriracha sauce – I just ended up splashing a bit of Tabasco – perfect!

this one is a keeper!

Do you like egg salad?  Do you add pickles to yours?

BSI – Beets!

This weeks secret ingredient kind of threw me for a loop.  The problem?  I don’t like beets!   But you know what?  This isn’t the first time I’ve used an ingredient I didn’t like!  Way back when, sweet potatoes were chosen.  I don’t like sweet potatoes, or so I thought!  I came up with Sweet Potato Pillows in a spicy red pepper cream sauce – and I loved it!

I have to give Tony full credit for the idea of this recipe – thanks Tony!

Biz’s Beet Hummus (printer friendly version here)

  • 2 medium beets
  • 2 tablespoons tahini sesame seed paste
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • zest of one lemon
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
  • salt and pepper to taste

Cook beets for 30 minutes on top of the stove until tender over low heat.   Cool, peel and put everything in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Refrigerate.  Serve with raw vegetables and crackers.

the beets are bleading!

After the first taste, I decided it needed a little heat – that’s when I added the crushed red pepper – perfect!

Can I tell you that I was nervous to try this??  But you know what?  Once you get past the color, the beets just give the hummus a slightly sweet taste – it’s delicious!  Even Tony tried it and liked it!!  The whole recipe comes in at 678 calories, 24 fat, 96 carbs, 25 fiber and 29 protein.  Caloriecount gives my recipe an A:  it is low in saturated fat, there is no cholesterol and it is high in fiber, iron, magnanese and phosphorus! :D

Since I had leftover dough from last night’s spinach pizza, and I had seen Cory’s grilled caprese pizza, I knew I would be grilling pizza!  It’s weird, it’s the same dough as last night, but grilling pizza gives a whole new texture to the dough – almost light?  Hannah was my outdoor kitchen assistant!  One word of advice – this goes pretty quickly, so make sure you have all of your ingredients on hand.

I bake it naked, and then after the first flip, but my ingredients on and put the lid on until the cheese melts.  And using a coal grill, it is best to have direct and indirect heat, so put your coals to one side, otherwise your dough will burn before the cheese melts.

My beverage of choice last night?  64 calorie beer, which isn’t too bad – I just add a section of lime to it and that really helps!

My pizza is a deconstructed version of Cory’s, simply because I don’t like whole tomatoes – I seeded and diced up one roma tomato, had spinach, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella cheese.  But you know what makes this pizza?  The balsamic reduction.  Hands down brings this pizza to a whole other level!   Simply take 2/3 cup of balsamic vinegar and bring to a light boil, stir for about 5 minutes and remove from the eat.  It reduces down to almost a syrup like consistency.

my ingredients - I drizzled the vinegar on after it came off the grill

After my spinach pizza last night, this comes in as a very close second as my favorite pizza I’ve made! :D

I had an awesome grocery shop yesterday too!  I spent:

On the menu? (remember, breakfast and lunch is just me!)

Breakfast:

  • breakfast pizza
  • huevos rancheros verdes
  • egg sammie
  • zucchini egg white hash
  • spicy oats with cheese and turkey bacon

Lunch:

  • scallop bisque with spinach salad
  • hot chile grilled cheese with grilled cream of tomato soup (come back tomorrow for that recipe!)
  • crisp tortilal with avocado, beans and cheese
  • pesto chicken sandwich with roasted red pepper
  • green chile tortilla pie from In Praise of Leftovers

Dinner:

  • Grilled Pork roast with cauliflower gratin
  • Grilled scallops, Parmesan zucchini and rosemary potatoes
  • Tacos de Barbacoa from foodpeople want
  • beef roast with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans
  • lime and garlic spiced grilled cornish hens, roasted red potatoes and grilled broccoli

What are your plans today? I am meeting up with my Momma for lunch at Sweet Tomatoes and then hitting up Sam’s Club with her.  It looks like another beautiful day!!

Best Shrimp Cocktail EVER!

Reason 1,001 I love my husband!  Holy cow, he made the best shrimp cocktail I have ever had INCLUDING RESTAURANTS!  But you’ll just have to read through my post to get there!

Reason 1,002, 1,003, and 1,004 reasons I also love my husband:

1,002:  He took me to a restaurant supply store!

1,003:  He took me to the Japanese grocery store (where I finally picked up kobacha!)   I found it Maggie! :D

1,004:  He took me to Eurofresh, one of my other favorite grocery stores!  (Two grocery stores in one day – how lucky am I!)

And now on to reason 1,005.   He made me breakfast!  Two eggs, taco meat, cheese and a slice of toasted dark rye with a shmear of butter.  It was delicious!

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I woke up Hannah at 9:30 to see if she wanted to hit the road with us.  The bus was leaving at 10:00 and since she didn’t have to work until late this afternoon, she got up :D   A 45 minute drive later and we arrived!

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Yeah, that’s right – everything for a professional kitchen!

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I could have stayed all day!  But other than my pizza peel, I think my next favorite thing I got was my baguette mold!  I am planning on making homemade bread for the boys sausage and beef sammies for the first part of football Sunday.  I also got some squirt bottles, a shrimp deveiner, some bamboo skewers (100 for .89 cents!)  and some kick ass chili mix.

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I also bought a big plastic container with a lid, to hold my Artisan bread in the fridge.  The bucket was $2.99 and the lid was $1.39!

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We then headed to lunch.  Siegelman’s Deli.  This is our third or fourth trip and it is always so good!  I still got my Irving – open face corned beef sandwich with sauerkraut and swiss cheese.  My soup was a new try – something called Kreplach.  I am going to try to recreate this at home – it basically was a pastry filled dumpling with seasoned ground beef in chicken broth – very good!

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Sorry the lighting isn’t very good in this place!  I ate 1/2 of my sandwich and about 10 french fries.

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Then it was onto the Japanese grocery store, where I finally found this!

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Can’t wait to finally try this – I’ve seen it everywhere in food blogville!  I just had to go over to the bakery section too:

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But I did not buy anything there!  At the second grocery store, while Tony waited in line at the deli, I had to scan out their $1 racks.  If I have any regular readers, you know I find tons of deals on the dollar rack – just look at this loot!  Every package on this rack sells for $1!  Sorry random grocery store person for getting in my photo!

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So when we got home, I stared on my Italian Sunday Gravy.  That is tomorrow nights dinner.  Another name for it is $20 meat gravy, because there is a lot of meat!  You’ll just have to come over tomorrow night for the rest of the details!  I am using my friend Christina’s Dad’s hot sausage in this recipe – it looks so fricken good!

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Then I decided I had to do something with this weeks BSI ingredient – Pancake Mix!  Caitlin of Healthy Tipping Point is this weeks hostess.  The only catch is that you can’t make pancakes or waffles!

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I got the idea of making a cheddar beer bread, only using bisquick, a beer and a cup of cheese.  At the last second I thought I might add an additional teaspoon of baking powder – but that ruined it!  It had an aftertaste that was not pleasant at all!  But I am not giving up!  I am going to try again tomorrow, reducing the beer and adding bacon! :D   It looked pretty coming out of the oven though!

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So while I went next door to our neighbors house to watch their youngest kids for an hour or so, Tony made dinner!  He was watching American Test Kitchens on our local PBS station and while they were making shrimp salad, he thought the process of cooking the chicken would make the best shrimp cocktail.  HOLY YUM this was incredible!  I wish my pictures showed this shrimp justice – but it was amazing!  So flavorful and meaty! :D

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Best Shrimp Cocktail Ever! (process courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen)

  • 1 pound extra large shrimp
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (one lemon), + one additional tablespoon from a bottle, saving the shell of the lemon
  • 5 sprigs of parsley, plus 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
  • 3 sprigs of fresh tarragon, plus 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon laves
  • cracked ground pepper
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. salt

Combine shrimp, lemon juice, reserved lemon halves, parsley sprigs, tarragon sprigs, pepper and sugar and salt in a medium sauce pan.  Add 2 cups cold water and over medium heat, cook shrimp stirring several times until pink and the water reaches 165 degrees.  Tony actually put our remote meat thermometer in the pan and once it reached 165 degrees, removed from heat, covered and let the shrimp sit in the broth for 2 minutes.

Then he strained the pot and put the shrimp directly in an ice bath to stop the cooking process for 3 minutes.  Their recipe went on to make shrimp salad.  Tony however just patted the shrimp dry from the ice bath and kept them chilled in the refrigerator.  Seriously, I am pretty sure this is going to be a staple in our menu – and also great for company because you can make it ahead of time.

The second part of the dinner was Garlicky Shrimp with Bread Crumbs.  The sauce was actually butter, garlic, red pepper flakes and clam juice!  Then you add 2 teaspoons of flour until the sauce reduces.  He toasted up some breadcrumbs earlier.

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THANKS FOR THE DELICIOUS DINNER AND MY “BIZ” DAY!  I love you more every day I know you! :D

Alright, this is already a monster post, so off I go to snuggle with Tony!  See you tomorrow for more bread making and classic Italian Sunday Dinner! :D

Are you ready for some football??

So I was going to make the dips last night, but when I pulled out the recipes, I realized I needed to let the cream cheese come to room temperature.  So I made them this morning.  I’ll show pics when they come out of the oven!

Another thing I made this morning was the steak tartare.  I cannot urge you enough to get your meat from a butcher.  You’ll pay more for it, but you’ll know its quality meat.  My 1 1/2 pounds cost $7.26.

Steak Tartare

  • 1 1/2 pounds ground sirloin
  • 1 tablespoon brown mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • ground pepper to taste
  • 1 egg
  • Tony has anchovies on the side for him
  • rye bread (I have party rye)

In a medium bowl, mix together all the ingredients until well blended.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes to let the flavors blend.  And while most people have garnishes of chopped hard boiled eggs, or capers, Tony and Joe just go the salt and pepper route.

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Breakfast was light, considering how much mayonnaise is in my dips!   1 egg, 1/4 egg whites, spinach, pinch of mozzarella cheese, 2 ounces corned beef hash and 1/2 of a honeycrisp apple:

257 calories, 13 fat and 16 carbs

257 calories, 13 fat and 16 carbs

I am off to section my dough for my garlic bread tonight.   Joe wasn’t here the last time I made it, and I think he’ll love it!  See you later!

My garden overflows. . .

 I wish!  After several years of attempting to be gardners with marginal success at best, we let the grass grow over our garden and just wait until the end of the season to make homemade salsa and pasta sauce.  And look at the price of all these tomatoes!  Add 1.00 for 10 limes, and .57 cents for the jalapenos, this is going to make lots of salsa for under $10.00.  Pace brand sauce in my grocery store sells for $3.99 for a 10 ounce jar!

This recipe all started when there used to be a fast food Mexican chain (Baja Fresh) that we went to that had the most amazing salsa I had ever tried.  It was perfectly smooth (not a fan of chunky salsa) and it had these delicious black flecks swimming in the salsa.  I always left with a big container.  Then one day, THEY CLOSED THEIR DOORS.  No more salsa!

We paid .79 to a website for copy cat recipes, and now my daughter and I are in salsa heaven!  We thought that the black flecks might be black beans, but what it turned out to be was the char on the tomatoes and jalapenos.

Begin by heating your grill (I use the gas grill to control the heat better) so it is really hot.  Mine got up to about 500 degrees.  Place the tomatoes and jalapenos on the grill and grill until they are completely black.  For tomatoes this size, it took about 45 minutes.

They start out like this:

But end up lovely like this!

 

Here is the recipe.  I tried making a giant batch once, but the flavor wasn’t the same, so I just make this small recipe over and over until I am out of tomatoes!

  • 7 firm medium tomatoes, cold
  • 1 small jalapeno
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tsp. Salt
  • 1 ½ cups water (optional, depends on how juicy your tomatoes are)
  • juice of 1 lime
  • 4 tablespoons chopped cilantro (fresh)

Just throw everything in the blender or food processor and pulse until smooth.  You’ll be hard pressed not to dip chips even though its still warm!  I have kept this in the fridge for up to a week, but usually can it in a water bath for 30 minutes in pint or quart size jars. 

 

 

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