Apple Pie

Ok, a fair warning here. This falls into more of the "Apple Crisp" category here, rather then "Apple Pie". I tweaked the recipe a little and included a crust, so mine is closer to a pie then a crisp. It's the oatmeal top that makes it more "Crisp". I think a pie should definitely have a pie top and bottom. Anyway...

This is low calorie because it has no sugar. The only two sweeteners are Truvia and Splenda. And, on a whole, I think this tastes pretty good. One of the elements to the crust is crushed pecans, which give it a rich flavor. 130 calories a server is great, too.

Ok, so that's all for this week. I have a busy day tomorrow, so I wanted to get all of these recipes down before the week was done.

Turkey Tacos

One of my favorite foods is tacos. I have a recipe my mom gave me with is out of this world. Honestly though, it came from Betty Crocker, so it's not authentic at all.

Rocco's recipe doesn't stray too far from my own in it's basic ingredients. It just doesn't have the "spice pack" that mine has. I'd say Rocco's tastes a lot "fresher" then mine, because all the ingredients are fresh, of course!

One of the key ingredients is fresh salsa. He doesn't make you make your own, although that would be good. Instead, he recommends using fresh salsa from the produce section of any grocery store. Market Basket sells an awesome brand and it tastes incredible. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but it's the only brand they carry. It really pushes this taco to another level of goodness.

The other things that he has that I don't put in mine: tomatillo salsa, greek yogurt, and black beans. The tomatillo salsa I found that was great was from Trader Joes. The greek yogurt replaces sour cream, and it works really great as a replacement. Fat free sour cream is so bland. And the black beans add a nice flavor to it, so it almost because burrito like.

I'm not sure this is really lower in calorie then the tacos I make. I did notice that we had a lot left over and we ended up eating this three nights straight. A definite keeper in my book.

AWESOME Low Calorie Onion Rings

Another bad photo with a horrible camera flash. My flash will be returned to me hopefully soon and I will be able to get back to taking somewhat decent photos.

This has been one of my favorite recipes. It's crunchy, yummy, and has a zippy sauce to die for. All it takes are some vidalia onions, skim milk, egg whites, wheat flour, and panko whole wheat breadcrumbs. The secret is soaking the onions in the skim milk for 20 minutes. Then, toss them in wheat flour, a toss in egg whites, a toss in panko bread crumbs and you've got an awesome dish.

The sauce is real simple. Low fat Hellmans, liquid smoke, and a dash of tabasco. Now, I didn't have liquid smoke and didn't feel like spending hours looking for it. I did have worcestershire sauce, and it has no calories, so I substituted that. It tastes fantastic.

At some point, I'll come up with the best recipes of the month. This will be one of them.

Rocco's How Low Can You Go Marinara Sauce

Another day without my flash. These pictures
make me annoyed because the food doesn't look
as good.

So, you're thinking, what's up with pasta sauce, isn't it low cal anyway? Well Rocco is shaving off 30 calories with this recipe for a total of around 50 calories. And it's wonderful. It has such rich flavor. This is what makes the deep dish pizza so heavenly.

I made three batches this week. One went to a pizza my wife and I had for lunches. The other two are in the freezer, and I can pull them out at a moments notice. This is the best sauce I've ever eaten.

Chicken Marsala

First of all, my external camera flash died. So, my pictures are really lame right now.

I had never had chicken marsala before. The thing that scared me were the number of mushrooms in this recipe. It was a huge amount. I think this is how Rocco gets around not having other things, by overloading on mushrooms. I don't like mushrooms.

Normal chicken marsala comes in at around 750 calories. This one comes in at around 250 calories. It's pretty easy and tastes great.

Lobsta Bisque

I don't usually eat much sea food. On top of it all, the kind of lobster I like is the kind that comes in hot dog rolls slathered in mayo. This is a healthy way of eating lobster. And, we had a dinner party coming up, so I thought it would be cool to make this.

First of all, hats off to my wife for braving it out and buying the lobster. She was really nervous and I wasn't going to be able to get them. She survived though.

I also need to thank Melanie because she is a lobster aficionado and without her, I wasn't going to be able to complete this recipe. She allowed me to use her kitchen and cooking stuff, which was very helpful. Also, while I prepared the base for the bisque, Melanie took the lobster apart, per Rocco's instructions. It was rather complicated. This recipe goes for two pages and I wouldn't recommend it if you are short on time or patience. Rocco does say at the beginning of this recipe to do it when you have a leisurely weekend. Another words, lots of time. But, it does explain why lobster bisque is so expensive in restaurants.

Anyway, it came out great and everyone loved it. This recipe comes in at 120 calories a serving. The servings are huge. One of the things that made this great was that there was so many different flavors in each spoonful. It was a big hit.

Unfortunately, I probably won't make it again, because it's so complicated. But, it's one more recipe that I've done.

I Feel Awful About Falafels

I have a great falafel recipe. Unfortunately, it involves frying the mashed chickpea ball in lots of hot oil. It is so good, yet so bad.

I was really excited to try this Rocco recipe. So, I followed all the directions very carefully. It smelled great. The dressing looked like it was going to be awesome. Then, when it came to the taste, it was terrible. It was dry and way to garlicky. This was baked in the oven instead of deep fried. I also remembered that the recipe I liked uses fresh parsely, which this recipe does not.

Well, come to find out, I missed something in the directions. I accidentally substituted coriander for cumin. My recipe does call for coriander, so I think that was what threw me off. Still, it was a little dry for my taste. Rocco does have a recipe for flash fried chicken. I think I will try my recipe for falafel, but flash fry it instead. Perhaps this will give me a healthier option then the full fried version.

Tiramisu

Tiramisu. It is bad for you. 500 calories a serving. It is also very tasty.

Rocco's Tiramisu is around 120 calories a serving. How does he do it? Instead of cream, you use Rocco's secret ingredient: Greek Yogurt.

I brought this to my Monday night group. It was gone in  a matter of minutes. Everyone loved it. It has a slightly different taste from regular tiramisu. Perhaps it's the yogurt. Anyway, I definitely plan on making this again. Perhaps Friday for a dinner party I'm going to.

Chicken Pot Pie

A good chicken pot pie just warms the heart. One that comes in at 300 calories a serving is too good to be true. But this one is definitely a keeper.

Like I've mentioned before, Rocco's recipes are good, normal size portions. There isn't this skimping on size like most low calorie foods. And to top it off, this recipe is incredibly easy.

I used a mixed bag of veggies and got a rotisserie chicken at Market Basket for $3.99. Just carve the chicken and shred some of the meat up with two forks.

By the way, these rotisserie chickens are great because you can use them for so much more. We are also going to use these in chicken salad sandwiches for lunch. But if you plan the recipes right, you can make a bunch of different recipes with the same ingredients. For instance, the chicken quesadilla and the chicken and dumplings both use rotisserie chicken. 

My wife and I loved this recipe, so we will definitely add this to our regular repertoire.

Rocco's Magnificent Mayo or How I Destroyed the Food Processor

I've never made my own mayo, much less a healthy one that comes in at 18 calories a serving. Since I was going to have a lot of left over chicken from another recipe this week, I thought that we would make chicken salad sandwiches for lunch and use the chicken up. 

I should put a disclaimer here for those who attempt this recipe. At one point, you will be food processing for 3 minutes straight. If you live in an apartment, this will probably annoy your neighbors. It annoyed us.

On the plus side, this mayo has a great flavor. It's going to be a great substitute to real mayo.

The other part of the story is that I destroyed our Food Processor. Perhaps leaving it on for 3 minutes straight or something. When I was scraping some of the processed stuff back down the side of the mixing bowl, my spatula got stuck. The blade wouldn't pull out. Finally, after a bit of wiggling around, I got the spatula free. Then I couldn't get the blade, which had pulled out a little, back down. Finally, after pushing really hard, it got back down to where I thought it was supposed to be. I locked in the cover and proceeded to pulverize the mayo some more. After it was done, the blade top, which is made of plastic had melted a little bit to the top of the food processor cover. I'm still not sure what happened. I will put in a call to Cuisinart to get new parts.

Rockin' Asian Stir Fry Sauce

Wow, this has a lot of flavor! This basically the same sauce as Rocco's General Tso's Chicken. General Tso's has a little more kick to it. Anyway, I had already done this sauce once before, so I thought I'd add in my own ingredients. At Market Basket, I found in the produce section, a small bag of veggies, including carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. Usually, when I've tried stir fry, I have too many vegetables, so, this small bag was perfect.

I also changed up the way I do stir fry. Usually, I try to do a stir fry in a normal non stick frying pan. However, I kept reading about wok's and their advantages. Mainly, woks heat up to a higher temperature, and you can stack things higher in a wok. So, I stopped by one of Lowell's many Asian grocery stores and found this product. It is non stick, but, it isn't teflon.

The sauce itself comes in at 12 calories a serving, which is incredibly low. In addition, I used low salt soy sauce and low salt chicken broth. I also had left over rice noodles in the cupboard, so I used up those as well.

This is definitely by best stir fry I've ever done.

Fillet of Sole Meuniére

I found the right fish this week! It took a while. I discovered that Trader Joe's has this fish in the frozen section. So, while doing the cheese fondue that wouldn't properly melt, I did the fish as well. This also comes with a side of spinach.

I thawed the fish the night before. I was surprised how many fillets come in one package. It was only a pound but this one had at least 8 fillets. That means, following Rocco's recipe, that each serving was 2 fillets.

The thing about this was that my fish fell apart in the pan. My suspicion is because it was frozen, it no longer had the consistency of fresh fish. That was the only frustrating part of this dish. Everything tasted great otherwise. All of this was around 260 calories.

Cheese Fondue with Apples and Radishes

Alright, so my first time cooking with alcohol. I don't normally drink, since every time I have had a drink, I've gotten terribly sick. So, I took a chance with this Rocco recipe. By the way, normal cheese fondue nearly has 1500 calories. This one comes in at 248.

Here is the first lesson I learned. Never use Sargento cheese for anything! Even if it's the last cheese on earth. I swear, the stuff is made of plastic. From now on, I will only use Cabot, especially for things like this. Cabot is at least real cheese.

Anyway, I followed the directions perfectly. The issue was that Sargento just won't melt. It sticks to a rubbery form. This thing sat in a pan at medium heat for 10 minutes. Finally, I put some in a bowl, microwaved it for 2 minutes, and it started to melt. Not totally, but mostly. If you look at the picture, you can still see some bits that wouldn't melt.

Other then the problem with Sargento cheese, this recipe was amazing. I loved it. It had so much flavor. Definitely a keeper.

Sweet Onion and Leek Quiche

I like quiche. My favorite recipe is one I got from someone who has a gluten allergy and the crust is made of sausage. It is NOT a low fat food.

This Rocco quiche doesn't have any sausage. It does have a lot of vegetables (2 leeks and 2 onions). I actually didn't make the one that you see on the left. My wife and I needed to go somewhere tonight and I wouldn't have time after work to do it. So, I cut up the veggies, gave her the instructions and rushed off to work.

It came out fantastic. She followed the directions and it was just about ready by the time I got home from work. All for around 200 calories and 10 grams of fat per slice. And by the way, yes, that is bacon sprinkled on top. Once you cut out a lot of fat from foods, you are able to add some back in.

This really was a veggie quiche. It had more vegetables then any quiche I've every had. This really made me realize how much egg, cheese, and other bad stuff usually make up our favorite dishes. In order to make things more healthy, you really have to cut back a lot. But, as this recipe shows, you don't have to cut back on flavor.

Mousse Part Deux!

Remember how my first mousse failed? I finally had success this week. I made real egg whites and beat them till they peaked. I did freak out a little after I folded in the chocolate part and did something I should have never done: I beat the whole mixture after I folded it in. Bad, bad, bad. However, the fridge healed the mousse and it congealed properly. Whew!

At first my wife thought it was was too strong, but she got used to it, especially the graham cracker crust. The graham cracker crust my idea, actually and not a part of Rocco's recipe. I had these little crusts left over from a couple weeks ago, so I decided to add them in to the recipe. It was a nice touch, if I say so myself.

By the way, including the crust, this is 265 calories. So, not bad at all, especially for such a rich chocolate dessert.

Tilapia Française and Creamed Spinach

This is a two for one special. I did both a fish recipe, Tilapia Française, and a side recipe, Creamed Spinach. Normally, this would run around 900 calories.

There's a bit of a story to this dish. This was supposed to be red snapper, not tilapia. Unfortunately, I couldn't get red snapper. I looked at Market Basket and Hannaford's. Finally, I called Whole Foods and they said they had it. They did. The problem is that they sold it as whole fish, not as a fillet. I have never deboned a fish and thought that this would be a very bad idea if I tried. Anyway, long story short, tilapia was on sale at Whole Foods. So, that is what I bought. The funny thing is, many restaurants that claim to sell red snapper actually give you tilapia. So, maybe I made a lucky guess for a substitution.

So, the fish was pretty easy. a coating of whole wheat flour, some egg, toss it in the pan. The sauce was just as easy. I'm just not sure I did it right. It had kind of a brownish color, which made me nervous, because it wasn't what I expected. I thought it would be be runnier and a lighter color or something. The taste was great, though. I did check online and discovered that the sauce was the correct color. I'm now able to cook fish in the Française style. Oui oui!

My wife volunteered to the do the creamed spinach. I had some left over spinach from the dip I made the other day. We chopped up the other necessary ingredients, and while the fish cooked, she finished up the creamed spinach. It came out very good as well. If I didn't tell you it was low calorie, you would never now. It did have a "different" taste from the cheese based creamed spinach I usually do. However, it was definitely a keeper.

All together, these two recipes added up to around 320 calories. You can't complain about that.

Hot Artichoke Parmigiano Dip

I love dips. My favorite is Heluva Good Bodacious Onion Dip. Sit me down with a back of Market Basket Chips and Bodacious Onion Dip, and I could probably eat the whole thing.

Many restaurants have a great Hot Artichoke Dip. It's usually served with tortilla chips. Rocco's version called for a sliced whole wheat baguette, but I didn't have access to this. I used what I had, which was a whole wheat pita. Slice this up in triangles, toss in the oven for 6 minutes at 450°, and you got yourself some great chips. I also sometimes season these with olive oil, garlic or onion powder. I just season these with salt and baked them. No olive oil because I was trying to cut the fat. I've made these many times. Sometimes I'll bake these up as a late night snack and dip them in hummus. Anyway, enough about that.

The dip itself is pretty simple. 1 can of artichoke hearts in water, some garlic, spinach, low fat mayo, some parm cheese. Toss in the oven for a few minutes. Rocco says 2 minutes. In my oven it was more like 4 minutes.

The result is fantastic. I would have no idea that this was so low in calories. The restaurant style of this dip comes in at 900 calories. This version, which truly is as good, comes in at 200.

General Tso's Chicken

The classic greasy American Chinese food get's a makeover in this recipe. And it avoids the greasy, fried goodness, and instead uses a baked chicken that's soaked in a yummy sauce. Whole wheat panko bread crumbs, whole wheat flour and baked to a nice crunchiness. And the sauce was incredibly simple, but everything I used was fresh. No dried spices. All real, cut fresh. Like all Rocco's recipes, the more you do by hand and make fresh, the better it is. I'll rank this dish in greatness with the pizza. Something I could eat everyday.

Chocolate Mousse, aka Dessert Disaster

You know how at grocery stores, how they sell egg whites in a container? DON'T use those to try to whip eggs. I discovered that it doesn't work. Who knows what they put in to those "egg whites" to keep it fresh. Whipping eggs needs real fresh egg whites, not egg whites from a milk carton.

Anyway, this chocolate mousse tastes great. It will cure anyone with a chocolate craving. It's only 145 calories. It's just that mine came out like soup instead of mousse. I promised I'd try a recipe every week, I didn't promise that it would come out like it was supposed to.

Deep-Dish Pizza

Why would anyone mess with pizza? It's perfect in in concept: cheese, bread, meat, sauce. Rocco decides to tackle this high calorie challenge. The results are amazing.

Yes, what you see on the left is a whole wheat crust (actually, I used 80% wheat because I'm trying to use up some white flour). But what you also see is homemade sauce, home made dough, turkey pepperoni, low fat cheese, some pineapple, and lots of basil. The result is awesome. The basil really pushes it to the next level. It makes it a fancy pizza instead of a normal pizza joint pizza. I also used a little cornmeal on the pan and that kept the crust from sticking to the pan. It added a nice texture to the crust.

I could eat this everyday, if I was allowed. It's filling, it's not greasy, and it has great flavor.

Note: I've pulled out my decent camera for the last two posts and I hope to continue using it. My camera phone camera doesn't have all the bells and whistles my Nikon has. I think you will notice that the pictures look much better.

A New Feature in the Kitchen!

So, based on the recipes I've tried, and curiosity as to whether I could make things better, and the advice of friends who know a lot more about cooking then I do, I decided to get some fresh herbs. First, I went online here, and discovered a suggestion as to how to keep herbs fresh for around 2 weeks. Then, I went to the grocery store. Almost all produce sections have fresh herbs in these little containers. These things are way too expensive. They also have herbs in big bunches. So, I bought both fresh basil and parsley.

Then I went home, cut an inch of stem off both, and put them in glass jars with a little water. You can see the photo on the left. The basil looks a little anemic but it tastes great, as you'll find out in my next post. The parsley looks like it will do fine here.

The flowers were an easter gift to my wife. They haven't opened yet, hopefully soon.

Note: I now realize that one of the recipes I'm trying this week calls for flat leafed parsley and I got curly parsley. Oops.

Rocco Dispirito's Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies