Dinner on the Farm

Baked Italian Pork Parmesan!

Pork Loin steaks breaded with fresh whole grain bread crumbs with eggplant cubed in the same dish...fresh marinara poured over it all topping it off with fresh parm.

Served over brown rice. Also have fresh green beans in the steamer insert.

Low fat, low salt, low calories!

Fresh Marinara is easy to make! Start with a basic tomato based puree.

Take 4 fresh tomato's quartered, half a bell pepper, about 2 teaspoons of fresh minced garlic, onion, mushrooms and 2 celery stalks and process them in a blender, bullet, ninja or food processor until pureed. 

For this particular dish I added some dried Italian blended herbs.

You can use this in spaghetti sauces, other italian dishes. You can also use mexican spices and herbs instead of the italian blend for south of the border dishes or if you make it without seasoning and add in 1 tsp of either lemon juice or lime juice you will have a fresh pureed salsa to use on omelets in the morning or just to eat with chips!

Dinner on the Farm

El Grande soft tacos!

Low fat ground beef browned and rinsed with fresh sauteed garlic, onion, mushrooms, green pepper. Chili pepper and cumin to season, wrapped in a low fat softwrap with tomato and romaine lettuce.

We have discovered Smart & Delicious ™ Tortillas and Smart & Delicious SoftWraps ™ . Available at the bigger HEB's in the deli section they allow you to have tortillas and sandwich wraps at half or less the calories. They come in a variety of flavors and are very good.

HEB, Mission, other tortillas can be up to 200 calories each just for the tortilla. The Smart and Delicious brand tortillas are just 50 calories each. Their huge wraps are just 100 calories each, much less than 2 slices of bread for your sandwich.

They cost a bit more but they are worth it! Try them out....I think you'll like them....!

http://www.latortillafactory.com/product-5-overview.aspx

Heart Healthy Chili

Eat heart healthy!

Heart Healthy Chili

Tonight we are having a heart healthy homemade chili, brown rice, black beans and beer cornbread.

Heart healthy chili - made with the leanest ground beef, browned and then rinsed, chili thickened with unbleached flour, lots of seasoning, no salt (you cannot tell!)Beer Cornbread - 2 c self rising flour, 2 c cornmeal, 1 tlb sugar and a beer and a half. Topped with olive oil drizzled on top.... 
All in the rice steamer

If you don't own an electric rice steamer with an insert I encourage you to purchase one. Rice and other grains can be steamed in the bottom while taking advantage of the steam to cook vegetables and meats.  Best of all, it's quick and the clean up is minimal.
Brown rice pilaf, steamed zucchini and steamed naked chicken thighs.

Rice Pilaf had fresh tomato's, cumin, onion, green pepper, garlic. That was in the bottom with prescribed amount of water. Top insert had fresh sliced zucchini and chicken thighs with the skin pulled off and most of the fat cut off, seasoned with a little sea salt, garlic powder and pepper.  Chili Dogs!!

Yes you can have chili dogs and still be heart healthy!!

Jenny O' chicken franks are pretty good and are not bad at all when it comes to good nutrition! They were the best I have found so far... only 1.5g trans-fat and very low sodium...they are quite tasty! Other chicken franks, not so much... Read your labels!

Chili is made with 97/3 ground beef, browned, drained and rinsed then added back to the pan with 2 tlb olive oil....sautee fresh onion, green pepper, cilantro, garlic. Add plenty of chili powder and cumin and fresh tomato's pureed, thicken with unbleached flour adding the black beans last.

2 oz of smoked gouda on the top of that chili dog and I think we have a winner!

You can also puree the black beans to thicken the chili or soups if you want....rinse the canned beans first for lower sodium intake...
Smoked chicken, corn and black bean soft tacos with fresh avocado.... on whole grain tortillas... : )

Remember that John grilled last night? We grilled a little more than we'd eat last night to use tonight....Chopped up the chicken and sauteed with onion, garlic and cilantro in evoo then added in 1/2 can of black beans drained and 1/2 can corn drained. Would have been really good had I remembered to put a tablespoon of lime juice in it to make it POP.

Yes, canned. Occasionally I do use it...but I drain it in a colander and rinse it...Why?
To eliminate as much Sodium as we can