Holidays can be treacherous times for anyone trying to shed weight…unless you’ve learned how to fill yourself up and fake yourself out with The Skinny versions of the foods you crave!
And if you’re craving mashed potatoes with your turkey dinner, or just want them as part of a simple supper, this is a recipe that delivers in taste and texture…but has only a fraction of the calories and none of the fat.
Mashed potatoes made with milk and butter can have as much as 200 calories a cup. But a cup of “mock mashed” made with nutrient rich cauliflower has less than 30!
I didn’t invent the brilliant substitution of cauliflower for spuds–that’s a trick I learned from The South Beach Diet years ago…
But by changing the cooking technique–microwaving the cauliflower rather than steaming it (which made it too wet!)–and using just a wee bit ofSmart Balance Light Butter Spread and fat-free half and half, the dish is now quicker, easier, requires much less clean-up AND has much better flavor and texture..which means I can serve it to the pickiest of eaters!
Here's a great dish that does double duty: it can be dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. It's delicious served slightly warm or chilled. And it's especially great for a Friday night Lenten dinner. Using readily available ingredients including my favorite cans of tuna, this dish is light on the wallet too. For the best taste and texture use white albacore tuna packed in oil. It's much better than the chunk light in water.
Italian food isn't just all about pasta and tomato sauce. Much of it is
simple and rustic home-style cooking, like simple sautes and slow
braises. The recipes I like the most are both simple and elegant, such
as scaloppine, which involves cooking thin pieces of meat. All that the
word scaloppine means is thin piece of meat. Veal or chicken are
commonly used in classic recipes. The meat is breaded, fried, and then
served in a sauce, such as a piccata, which features white wine, capers,
and lemon.
I have a large collection of both vintage and current cookbooks with many favorites, but my heart skips a beat when I come across one of those local PTA, Church Auxiliary, American Legion, Junior League or Private Club cookbooks - usually in a spiral binding! Heaven! Where else can one find so many venerable variations on the great American cheese ball, guacamole, bean and sour cream dip, or anything made with dried onion soup mix – Laugh! (Ha-Ha) but the best comfort food in the world comes from these unpretentious, homey books!
Sometimes, Thursday’s roll around and all I really want to do is grab a friend and sneak out to a 10 a.m. movie. Eat popcorn for lunch and then come home and take a nap before the kids get home. This is merely a fantasy (aside from an occasional nap) and dinner on this particular day of the week can be easily coined, “use it up, Thursday”.