Chicken Fried Steak with Sausage Gravy

It's recipes like this that make this blog worth it. This is very good. It might not rank up there with the pizza or mac and cheese, but it's definitely a keeper.

Rocco's recipe gets around the badness of the original chicken fried steak by baking the steak instead of frying it. You also coat the steak in whole wheat panko bread crumbs. Finally, the one last trick is using non fat greek yogurt in the gravy.

It's a dish that takes you back home to the south, even if you've never been there.

Normally, this dish comes it at around 2000 calories. Yes, that's 2 THOUSAND calories. Rocco's version is around 320. The one thing is that there is still 10 grams of fat. But, that is better then 100 grams of fat in the original.

No Cream-No Cry Penne Alla Vodka

I have a lot of pasta dishes I haven't done yet, so I better get cracking on these.

I discovered that I'm not a big fan of tomato cream sauces. Or maybe, just this one. I guess if I had to give this a grade, I'd give it a C. Again, another dish that wasn't terrible, it wasn't great, either.

The garlic bread was something I added in. It was NOT healthy by any stretch of the imagination. When I was shopping for the key ingredients to this recipe, I saw that Hannafords had a wheat garlic bread that you just threw in the oven. After ten minutes, I took it out and realized that there was about a half stick of butter that hadn't melted. I scrapped it off and we had that side the next day. It was pretty yummy, even with the butter scraped off.

Normally, this dish comes in at around 600 calories. Rocco's variation comes in at around 300.

Shrimp and Asparagus Stir-fry

I'm trying to take care of more seafood dishes, so I don't have to do them later. This one was pretty easy. I had some of Rocco's sauce all made up in the freezer, so I just pulled that out. I probably put in too much sauce. But, over all, it was a pretty good dish. I would give it a B-. Good, not great.

Normally this dish comes in around 900 calories. Rocco's version is around 200.

Seared Tuna with Green Beans, Lemon, and Wasabi

Seafood for me goes into two categories: either I really like it or I really don't. This one goes into the really don't.

I followed the directions to a "T". Unfortunately, the final product was too wasabi-y and I just wasn't impressed with the tuna. It's funny, because last week I loved the raw tuna. This cooked tuna just didn't taste great.

Calories in this dish are usually around 600. The calories in Rocco's version is around 150.

Loaded Potato Skins

Loaded Potato Skins

Yes, healthy loaded potato skins! Ha ha, this makes me laugh. These things are so good. They are like crack for your taste buds.

Normal loaded potato skins are around 650 calories per skin. Rocco's potato skins come in at around 200.

I will confess that we ate 2 each, so that puts us at 400 calories this meal. I guess that kind of defeated the purpose. But they were that good.

Skinny Chef's Salad

Skinny Chef's Salad

You know when you go to a restaurant and you can't find anything you like on the menu, what do you end up getting? The Chef's Salad. This is Rocco's answer to that.

This was harder to prepare than I thought it would be. Everything is hand cut and the eggs are hard boiled, yolks removed. It was very tasty. We used Rocco's Ranch Dressing, as opposed to his suggested Russian Island Dressing. The portion it made was huge, and we couldn't finish it in one sitting. It was a great salad.

Normal Chef's Salad is around 900 calories. This one is around 250.

Tuna Tartare with Ginger and Shiitake Mushrooms

I've never had Tuna Tartare before so I have nothing to compare this to. I guess I could compare it to sushi. I like sushi, so it was like doing my own sushi salad. 

I got the tuna grade sushi at HMart, an Asian grocery store in Burlington, MA. They have every kind of Asian food you can think of. I was a little nervous about buying this and keeping it fresh. So, on my way to HMart, I stopped by Market Basket and bought a bag of ice. After I bought the tuna, I put it on the front seat, took the back of ice and put it right on top. It did stay fresh.

This was a real good meal. I couldn't tell it was raw fish and I hate mushrooms too. But these mushrooms just blend right into the salad.

Normally this is around 360 calories. Rocco's version is around 130 calories. Yum!

French Onion Soup

I've never done a thyme bouquet, so I was really out of my element here. The restaurant french onion soups always have way to much salt, but this one was perfect.

I did manage to burn the onions the first time. I had to run out to the grocery store to get two more. And our house really smelled like smoke.

Regular french onion soup comes in at around 550 calories. This one comes in at around 300 calories

Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

This is a simple and incredibly delicious salad. The ingredients you can see right in the bowl. The way Rocco gets this healthy is by cutting the olive oil way back.

This was a big hit with the wife, so I think we will be making this a lot, perhaps even once every two weeks or so.

This is around 190 calories. And believe it or not, it's pretty filling.

Onion-Garlic Puree

This is a weird one, but it's a recipe in the book, so I have to do it. It's the base for Rocco Mac and Cheese. He also suggests that you use it for any recipe that calls for a lot of butter and cream, or just stir it into a soup or sauce.

It's fat free and it's only around 90 calories for 1 cup. I won't tell you how to make it, you should get the book. But it gives the Rocco Mac and Cheese a fantastic taste.

Macaroni and Cheese (Healthy)

The King of the comfort foods! It's good no matter if it's from the box, from the microwave plastic container, or baked with crunchy bread crumbs. So, how do you make it healthy?

Rocco's recipe calls for whole wheat macaroni, low fat cheese, some greek yogurt, and a bizarre puree of garlic and onion. It is truly one of the best recipes in the book. It's that good.

A regular serving of mac and cheese has around 700 calories. This has only around 230.

Flash Fried Finger Lickin' Chicken

So, I made this for 4th of July and it was a big hit. Even a genuine southerner thought it was great.

The secret is flash frying in grapeseed oil, which is something I've never done before. The reason you use grapeseed oil is because it has a high smoke point, which means you can really heat it up before it starts burning, as opposed to other oils. All you are doing is dipping it in the oil real quick (30 seconds to 1 minute) and browning the crust.

I didn't have a way of measuring whether the oil made it to 400°, which was Rocco's recommendation, so my first piece of fried chicken as a complete disaster. It came out totally charred and made the house smokey. So, I turned it down, and tried the next piece. That was a failure as well, because it was still to hot, but not as hot as last time, but hot enough to melt the ends of the plastic tongs I was using to put the chicken in the oil. By my third attempt, I got my game down and the rest were a success.

I did tweak the recipe a bit. Because grapeseed oil is so expensive, I only bought half the amount that was in the recipe and I used chicken breast instead of chicken thigh. Basically, I made healthy chicken fingers. And it came great, a definite keeper.

Normal fried chicken is around 550 calories, while this recipe is around 200.

One final tip, I found that a lot of these recipes have one or two hard to find/expensive ingredients. I highly suggest find a Trader Joe's around you and shopping there. TJ's seems to have the obscure ingredients at really good prices. I found a bottle of grapeseed oil there for $3.99.

Corn Chowder

I've never made corn chowder from fresh corn before. My corn chowder is loaded with spices and cheese, so it's no where near healthy. The Rocco version is great, though. Just the fact that I had to cut the corn off the cob added something a little special.

The secret ingredient is the cauliflower, which is pureed into the soup. Cauliflower, when pureed, almost has a potato taste.

Normal corn chowder comes in at around 360 calories. This one is around 200.

And, I just realized that I'm still on track for my 3 recipes a week. This one was done the week of June 27th, and it was my third recipe for the week.

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

I'm about 2 weeks behind, so I'll try to catch up here. I also thing that I missed a recipe in the past couple weeks. I'm not sure how I did that.

Anyway, here is Rocco's Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad. This is usually my go-to-staple at a restaurant, if I'm not too hungry and I don't see anything on the menu that I like. And this version is fantastic. Everything is homemade, right down the the croutons. I did use raw spinach instead of romaine, because that's what I had to eat. Normal chicken caesar salads are around 900 calories. This one is around 200.