Peanut sauce - 2 points on WW

Anyone who has met me, can tell you that I love Thai food. Cooking it the dishes I love from take out at home has been an ongoing project (see here my attempts at Pad See Ewe).

One of my frustrations since I started Weight Watchers, is that there aren't as many entries ethnic foods (hint hint WW powers that be). For example, I couldn't find a point count for my beloved Thai iced tea.

If you've read any of my recent posts, you also know that I am obsessed with low calorie powdered peanut butter. I might have to start ordering PB Fit by the case, unfortunately Amazon only sells the chocolate variety by the case.

I decided to try making a peanut sauce out of PB Fit so I could have it for Asian dishes, store bought peanut sauces can have a lot of sugar. You could easily use 1-2 points worth for an Asian dipping sauce. 1/4 of this recipe is 2 points, compared to 2 points for a Tb of most  pre-made peanut sauces, that's barely a dollop. This whole recipe is 8 points.

I initially used this sauce on a rice noodle stir-fry but it would also make a great dipping sauce for grilled chicken. I'm planning to try it shortly in my Instant Pot recipe for Asian style peanut chicken.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of PB Fit (or similar powdered peanut butter such as PB2)
1 Tb dark soy sauce (or you preferred soy sauce)
1/2-3/4 cup of water

Place PB Fit in a small bowl and add soy sauce. Whisk in 1/2 a cup of water. Gradually add small amounts of additional water until sauce reaches desired thickness.

If you are using it as a sauce on noodles like I did below, you might want a thinner sauce. If you are using it as a dip for chicken, you might want it a little bit thicker.

Each serving is 2 points on Weight Watchers Freestyle, the recipe makes 4 servings. The size of each serving will vary based on how much water you add. If you add more water, the serving will have a large volume but still be 2 points. With the full amount of water it's maybe 1/4 cup for a serving but to be honest I didn't measure because I poured it  all on some noodles and just included the full count for the sauce in my recipe. I put one batch of this sauce on a whole box of rice noodles, made with the full amount of water.

Peanut sauce on rice noodle stir-fry was 8 points/serving.

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of these links this blog may receive a small commission, thank you for your support. This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in April 2018 using the WW freestyle program. 

Scallops in white wine sauce

My infatuation with Asian cooking did not seem to last long, I'm back to the Mediterranean! Though, I am still planning on giving Pad See Ewe at try (even though everything I've read says you need a commercial gas oven to make it taste right) and something with peanut sauce.

Anyway I randomly bought some bay scallops (ie the little ones) a while back. In the US it seems we eat a lot more jumbo scallops, normally grilled, but in Italy they would show up in the delicious seafood medley pasta dishes with very light wine or butter sauces. Heaven? Heaven.

I thought, I could do this. I make mussels in a wine sauce, why not some scallops? Earlier that day, I was looking at my garden, specifically the rosemary and it seemed like it might just go nicely in this sauce. Plus the parsley at the grocery store was looking pretty sad that day.

Ingredients
Bay scallops, 8 oz
linguini, 6oz (~1/2 box)
2 cups white wine
5 Tb of butter, separated
3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary (remove leaves from stem)
1 tomato, diced
Garlic, to taste
Salt to taste

Heat 1 Tb of butter in a large sauce pan on med-high to high heat. When the pan is hot and the butter melted add the scallops and sear for 1-2 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

In the same pan, add the remaining butter and the wine. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted and add the tomatoes, rosemary leaves, garlic and salt. Simmer on med-high heat and reduce the sauce for about 20-25 minutes or until it reaches desired thickness (should reduce by about half).

When the sauce has been reducing for approximately 10 minutes, begin preparing pasta according to the package directions (ie start boiling water around this time or the sauce won't be reduced enough). When the pasta is al dente, drain it and put in the sauce pan with the wine sauce and add the scallops. Toss the pasta and scallops in the sauce and allow to simmer for 1-3 minutes (this will give the pasta a nice flavor and heat up the scallops a bit). Serve immediately. Makes two adult-sized servings.

In the photo you will notice I had a bunch of scallops, I actually made this with a 16 oz package and the ratio was just too much, so I scaled it back.

Also, you don't want leftovers from this dish - it just won't be that great the second time around, mostly because re-heating will over cook your scallops and make them chewy. They cook very quickly - don't over do it, really a minute or maximum two is plenty.

One final note, this sauce is a basic wine-butter sauce and almost exactly like this one for mussels - try it on both pasta and mussels and expand your repertoire!

Enjoy!

Beef Stir Fry

My cooking style tends toward the Mediterranean but we all need to branch out. So tonight was Asian night. Recently, I was at the grocery store and bought a steak. It was on sale, beautifully marbled and I had nothing to do with it but I bought it anyway and put it in the freezer.

Now it's coming out - to make steak stir fry.

Apparently stir fry is hard to mess up, because I had no idea what I was doing but the results were delicious. I started here but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the sauce?!? The directions are horribly unclear but I had already bought ingredients planning to cook this recipe...so I winged it.

Ingredients

2 cups water
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 cup soy sauce (you can use reduced sodium if you want)
6 oz steak (I don't actually know what cut I used)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
garlic
Sesame oil (optional)
2 cups frozen pepper strips
10 baby carrots

Slice steak into strips, cutting across the grain. Boil water and mix in corn starch thoroughly, add soy sauce and allow the sauce to reduce while cooking the rest of the ingredients. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large frying pan. Sear the steak with garlic and sesame oil and remove it from the pan. Cook frozen peppers in the pan with additional garlic and sesame oil, about 3 minutes before they are fully cooked add the carrots and return the steak back to the pan. The sauce should now be reduced (not thick, but thicker than is started out); add it to the pan with the steak and vegetables. Serve with white rice.

You'll notice my sauce diverges from my starting recipe, I tried making what I thought they wanted me to do and it was a disaster and I had to start over. This sauce had a great taste! I might try it again with some beef bouillon to see if it improves but I was pretty happy with the results. I served mine with the steamable frozen rice which makes for a quick evening meal.

Fresh pesto

Basil leaves are so aromatic they call your name as you walk past, or so I assume, I've never walked past without stopping for a sniff. The plants trumpet the delights of fresh pesto, caprese salad and real napoli pizza.

My basil plant started growing like crazy, especially considering the small pot it calls home. It was growing so much, I had to buy a food processor, seriously, it was a requirement. Plus I found an amazing deal for a small Cuisinart food processor online and now I can make hummus too.

I made just enough to use for one large serving of pasta or about a 1/4 cup.

Ingredients:
20-30 basil leaves
1 clove of garlic
~3 tablespoons of olive oile
2 tablespoons of pine nuts (or walnuts)
1/4 Parmesan or Romano cheese
sprinkling of sea salt

equipment: food processor

Place nuts and garlic and cheese in food process and chop them up. When they are corsely chopped, add salt and basil leaves and pour small amount of olive on top, reserving additional oil to add later (it helps coat the leaves and get them to settle down toward the blades). Chop until fine and well mixed, adding additional olive oil as needed.

Perfection. Or it will be next time - I used way too much garlic, as in 3 cloves, so all I could taste was garlic. When I was breaking apart the head of garlic three stray cloves broke off and I just decided to use them all, because I like crazy amounts of garlic but not that much. I have hope for the next rendition and am contemplating buying another basil plant.

Look for my end of summer post on how to preserve pesto for use during the winter months, after the of season basil harvest.

Pesto is great on pasta, sandwiches, toast with cheese and a variety of other uses. Enjoy the summer!

Cheesy pasta sauce

I saw a recipe for pasta sauce made with cream cheese and milk and that's all. Is using cream cheese to make cheesy pasta sauces a thing and I'm just not aware? Anyway, I of course had to try it because it was either going to be amazing or a total disaster.

The recipe where I got my sauce idea is here. The fact it came from Better Homes & Gardens gave me hope it wouldn't be terrible. Yea, BH&G has recipe street cred.

Sauce ingredients:
1 9oz tub veggie cream cheese spread
1/2 cup fat free milk

Place cream cheese and milk in a small sauce pan on medium heat and stir until well-blended and creamy. Place on top of warm pasta.

I made the sauce to top some whole wheat pasta with sausage and broccoli but you can put it on any kind of pasta you like.

First, plan on using more than 1/2 a cup of milk, I think it was a better consistency for pasta sauce after I tossed in about a full cup. If you decide to use whole or 2% milk, you might want a little but more even. This was a very easy and pretty tasty sauce (after I added more milk to thin it) but be warned that it's also very heavy, (because it's cream cheese!) so choose your pasta combo accordingly. Happy eating!

Cost: B+
Waste: A
Taste: B+

Marinara sauce - SGG 2010 goal!

When I made my ravioli last week, I also tried my own sauce. I looked at a multitude of recipes online and I was a little disappointed that all of them called for canned tomatoes! Not a single one asked for fresh! However, it makes the process that much easier, no chopping. So after my customary poking around in a few different recipes, what I came up with is below.

Simple Marinara Sauce

1 can Italian tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup water
2Tb mince garlic
2Tb olive oil
1Tb sugar
1Tb Italian seasoning
2tsp black pepper
2tsp sea salt

Sauté the garlic in the olive oil in a large sauce pan for 2-3 minutes or until lightly brown and fragrant. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, red wine, water, sugar and spices to sauce pan and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until it reaches the desired consistency. Serve with hot pasta.

The sauce I made (even with canned tomatoes) was better than most that you get from a jar but not mind blowing. I'll probably continue to use jar sauce most of the time and only pull out this version for special occasions but at least I have one cooking goal under my belt - only took 7 months!

A new way to make carbonara

When I was a kid, I always hung around the kitchen. When Mom was baking a cake, I was there waiting to lick the bowl - before my sister got there - and I would chat with my mom asking her a million questions about everything under the sun...needless to say I was kicked out a fair amount.

Little did I know that I was also learning to cook. I would sit at the bar (jabbering away) and she would be cooking on the other side. As an adult, I've always liked going to restaurants with open kitchens and watching what they are doing and learning new techniques and dishes. I was definitely hanging around Jess' kitchen while she was making the guacamole.

So there is this Italian restaurant called Vapiano's, it's a chain operated by a German company I believe and there was a location in Den Haag that I used to go to when I lived there and there are also a few in the DC area. Vapiano's has an open kitchen and they cook pasta dished in front of you. I almost always order spaghetti carbonara.

So I've made cabonara at home too, several times but the recipe I used was sort of hit and miss, it was better from Vapiano's. Plus what they were doing was simpler! I was mixing egg and cream and pouring it on hot pasta, mixing it quickly to cook the sauce. Sometimes it was really tasty and other times I ended up with pasta and scrambled eggs.

After watching the chef's at Vapiano's make my carbonara about 10 times, I thought I can do this, I'm gonna try it and if it doesn't work there is always a Lean Cuisine in the freezer.

Spaghetti Carbonara a la Vapiano's

1 serving of spaghetti/linguine pasta (cooked, hot)
1 1/2 cup cream
1 egg yoke
garlic, chopped
olive oil
chopped bacon
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Pour a small amount of olive oil in a small sauce pan and add chopped garlic and bacon. Cook garlic for about 1 minute until it becomes fragrant. Pour cream in sauce pan and cook on low-med heat until the cream boils around the edges, stirring frequently. Stir in egg yoke (can add additional spices here, basil ect). Reduce sauce, stirring frequently. When sauce reaches desired thickness, mix in pasta and serve. Garnish with Parmesan cheese, if desired.


This recipe was so simple. I actually made this on a whim, I had some extra cream in the fridge from making cinnamon rolls and pasta and an egg are pretty easy to come by in my house. I actually skipped the bacon and just added a bit of salt because I did not have any around, so I guess mine wasn't really "carbonara."

I've always been really interested in what is going in my food so, I've always liked hanging out in kitchens to watch, but for anyone who likes to cook or wants to learn more, definitely watch every chance you get - never know where you will learn something new!

Taste: B+
Cost: A
Wast: A+ (single serving!)

Mussels al la Marinere

I've been wanting to try making mussels for a long time but have been put off because I did not really know what to do and thought I'd screw them up. Now I'm pretty sure they are virtually impossible to screw up!

Not only are mussels always delicious when I have them in restaurants (and now at home!) but they are also a great seafood choice because growing them has a very low environmental impact, they actually clean the water while growing! Mussels are also healthy and fairy inexpensive for seafood. I bough a bag of probably 50 mussels for $4.99.

I read up on cleaning and debearding mussels before making them but honestly when I bought them at the store they were practically ready to roll. A few still had beards attached but a quick tug and they were gone. This YouTube video shows you how to clean and check the mussels.


At one point, I was a little creeped out because I realized the mussles were still alive and found it a little disconcerting. However, they need to be alive or you don't want to cook and eat them. Still when I went to soak them in water it was weird to see little bubbles come up.

The recipe I made can be found here. I followed the advice someone else left in the recipes comments about doubling the sauce and serving the mussels and sauce over pasta but honestly, I think it was a totally unnecessary thing to do. I was perfectly happy with the mussels and some bread to dip in the sauce. You'll want a crusty bread. I used a multi-grain baguette.


To summarize, my tips for making Mussels a la Mariniere:
1. Serving over pasta not needed
2. Be sure to soak the mussels in fresh water for 20min
3. Do not leave the mussels in a plastic bag after purchasing, they will die
4. Buy two bottles of wine if you want to have a few glasses with dinner, especially if you plan to double the sauce
5. Buy lots of bread, dipping is the best part

Taste: A+
Cost: B+
Waste: A

I'm starting to feel adventurous...

I feel like I haven't cooked in ages. All last week I ate but practically no cooking, and the week before? I'm sure I cooked something, but spent most of the week subsisting on Lean Cuisine and cleaning out the fridge. So now I'm feeling a little spunky.

And I'm thinking mussels. I love eating mussels but I've never cooked them. I've never even seen them cooked by someone else! From eating mussels, I know that the secret is a fabulous sauce. If the sauce is good, eating bread dipped in the sauce can make the actual mussels a side-show. My last attempt at a learning a new sauce was a total disaster, however, a yummy looking recipe I found would fulfill the criteria for all 3 of my cooking goals this year: 1) Try cooking mussels or scallops 2) Learn wine sauces 3) Learn reduction sauces. Seems like it's meant to be.

So I'm doing some reconnaissance on mussel preparation. I read a great article on allrecipes.com about mussel preparation and I'm starting to feel prepared, although I'm still not sure I have the slightest idea how to debeard a mussel. Maybe I will look for a YouTube video on mussel cleaning and give it a whirl this weekend.

3 pots = mediocre dinner

Since this is my first real post, I feel the need preface it saying that this is WAY more complicated than my normal Monday-night-meal. There were 3 different pots/pans used. That is a lot, normally, I'm low dish. 1 is ideal, 2 is pushing it, 3 is almost unheard of. Ok, I'm done - to the dinner.

I had some fresh basil to use that a coworker gave me (I'm working on growing my own, more on that later), that was the impetus for this plan. So I planned to make a new sauce a creamy butter sauce. It was a failure. It was supposed to be this but I was gonna use basil, cuz I had it, instead of sage. The sauce would not thicken. I almost called tech support (mom) but instead I added some flour, more flour and finally it was edible but not fabulous by any stretch.

But the next time I make alfredo sauce, I might use some chicken broth to make it a little lighter. Food for thought.

I also made some pasta and pork chops. They were both great. Pork chops were on sale (boneless, center-cut 3.99/lb), so I got some, sounded good. It occured to me, in the middle of cooking naturally, that I was making pork and a chicken broth sauce...mmmm...bit odd but that wans't bad really. Maybe it will be better when I have serving two for lunch tomorrow.

Too bad I had to start off the new blog with a failure (or at least not a sucess), I should have made the butternut squash that will be for tomorrow - if I'm feeling motivated.

Cost: C+
Waste: B (Lots of chicken broth left, no idea what to do with it)
Taste: C-