Kale & Quinoa Soup

Those of you who were on Facebook and Twitter last night, and experienced my impromptu “cook-a-long” may wonder what prompted me to make soup, from scratch, after 10 p.m.

And that would be a valid question.

Yesterday I had a small bout of LPS (Little Pouch Syndrome, or, when you just get full very fast with very little food). I won’t go into my theories about the causes of LPS (because this is a food blog) but let’s just say it…er, cleared itself up late in the evening and then I was FAMISHED!

Being that it was late and it was, like, two degrees outside, I wasn’t even remotely tempted to go outside the house to get something indulgent. And everything in my house is WLS approved. So since it was cold, and I was hungry, I figured, why not make some soup?

(PSA) People…stay in good communication with your veggie bin. Seriously. I have toned down my farmers market addiction (I used to buy WAY more than I could realistically consume before it all went bad and I’m notoriously too lazy to vacuum seal it most of the time) but still. I had lots of veggies that were well on their march homeward. So I knew that there would be some veggie action going on. But seriously. Check the veggie bin. Your veggies didn’t ask for this life. It was your choice to buy them. So use them!!! (/end PSA)

This particular kind of soup was actually inspired by my friend Denise who invited me to a soup potluck recently. Ultimately I was unable to make it to the gathering but before that came to pass I gave great thought to what soup I would bring and decided on a kale and quinoa soup with white beans that I found on Google.

But you know me…(at least I hope you do)…I like to play with my food!

So here’s what I came up with. What I like about this soup (as demonstrated from your comments during the cook-a-long) is that there are a million different directions you can take it in. That’s to say if you don’t dig what I did to it, put your own spin on it!

Best of all, it doesn’t have a bunch of ingredients and literally takes about 30 minutes to make. And I made it all in one deep skillet (easy clean-up)!

Nik’s Kale and Quinoa Soup

(This recipe yields a good deal of soup. Halve this if you will be the only one eating it!)

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, sliced into slivers
• 1 pkg. smoked sausage of your choice, sliced (I used just regular Polish sausage but Andouille would also be nice if you want a Cajun feel or some companies make great flavored chicken sausages!)
• 2 cans (14.5 oz. each) reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1 lb. kale, stems removed and rinsed
• ¾ c. quinoa (I used red quinoa, use whatever you like best)
• 2 cans (14.5 oz. each) white beans (I used Great Northern, but cannellini would be good as well OR if you wanna be different, try garbanzos for extra bite!)
• 2 c. water
• Your favorite spices/seasonings/flavorings. I used:
• Garlic
• Salt
• Pepper
• Red Pepper flakes (1/2 tsp.)
• 2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

Directions:

Spray down a deep skillet with nonstick and let it get HOT on the stove.

Add your onions and cook, stirring constantly, about 3-4 minutes or until they begin to brown a little.

Add sausage rounds and continue to cook, stirring, until sausage begins to crisp on the outside.

Add one of the cans of broth (or, if halving, half of one can) and stir any bits from the bottom of the pan. Top with kale and seasonings and then cover the pan and allow it to cook about 10 minutes or until kale begins to get tender and darken in color.

Add second can of broth and quinoa and stir it into the mixture. Cover again and allow it to cook an additional 10 minutes. The quinoa is done when it the ring pops out of the grain and it is to your desired tenderness (note that quinoa is a hearty whole grain so it’s never going to get “soft” like rice does).

Add your beans and water, then drop your heat to medium-low, cover and allow it to cook 10 more minutes or until the kale has reached your desired consistency.

What you see in the picture at the very top is my final bowl of soup with a little goat cheese on top. That was absolutely perfect because the way I spiced it, it needed a bit of tang. I thought the vinegar was going to deliver that tang (and it did a little bit) but the goat cheese put it over the top!

Anyway, this soup is warm, comforting and it was way healthier than most other things I might be inclined to eat at 10 p.m. Give it a try using the things you like. And if it turns out well, snap a pic and send it to bariatricfoodie@yahoo.com. I’d love to share what you did!

BF Test Kitchen: Sugar-Free, Low-Carb Protein Mini-Pound Cakes

First let me explain exactly what a test kitchen recipe is (in my head). That means it’s a recipe I’m working on that hasn’t quite “made it” to where I want it to be.

I say this again and again but I am not the Bariatric Foodie, I am a Bariatric Foodie, so I realize there are some bakers out there that might have a suggestion!

Of course there is a backstory.

Before Christmas I was at the craft store and found the cutest mini-bundt pans for a dollar. I bought two. I ended giving one away to my sister-in-law thinking I probably didn’t need two. After this fun experiment I need to go buy myself a few more!

S’anyway. I love pound cake. Don’t you? Even though I can only eat a few bites of pound cake now, I still adore the stuff. I made a few during the fall and all the while I was thinking about whether a pound cake could ever truly be WLS-friendly.

Enter my good friend Toni. She, for some generous reason, gifted me a bag of Atkins Baking Mix. You’ll see a lot of recipes on this blog using this mix (although that will change soon) but unfortunately Atkins has discontinued it. There are still bags out there but they go for a premium price and are not easy to find so when Toni sent me one it was like a dream! I felt obligated to do something more creative than my standard protein pancakes.

Now…enter the polar vortex. This gave me the time to think about my recipe. And, finally, enter the freezing rain that is set to usher in spring-like temperatures to Maryland over this weekend. The storm first produced freezing rain which delayed my children’s school opening by two hours which gave me time, during which I was awake, to give this thing a first shot!

Ok, so now that we’re all up to speed, here’s how I made the cake you see above.

Nik’s Sugar-Free Low-Carb Protein Pound Cake (Test Recipe)

(Makes two of the mini-bundt cakes shown above)

Ingredients

• ¾ c. Atkins Baking Mix (while we wait for Atkins to come to their senses my alternate suggestion is EITHER using ¾ c. low-carb baking mix – which would have less protein – or ½ c. low-carb baking mix with ¼ c. of your favorite vanilla protein powder)
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. Cream of Tartar or egg white powder (if you don’t have either you can omit it but it helps with the texture)
• 3 tbsp. butter or butter substitute (I highly recommend just using butter)
• No-calorie sweetener equivalent to ½ - ¾ c. of sugar (check your favorite sweetener’s website for a conversion chart because it’s not all the same!)
• ¼ c. unflavored Greek yogurt
• 1 large egg + 1 egg white
• ½ c. milk (I used unsweetened almond milk but use whatever you have on hand)
• ¼ tsp. lemon zest (or, in a pinch, ½ tsp. lemon juice or ¼ tsp. lemon extract)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine Atkins Mix (or equivalent), salt, baking powder and cream of tartar/egg white powder (if using) in a bowl. I actually sifted the Atkins Mix to make it a bit more fine although the fiber in the Mix doesn’t sift easily!

In another bowl mix the butter with the Greek yogurt and sweetener (I’d call it creaming but it’s not really!). Add the egg and mix in thoroughly before adding the egg white. (In retrospect I think I could have gotten away with just using two egg whites, so I’m going to try that on the next batch!).

Add half the egg/yogurt/butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir (I used a hand mixer). Then add half your milk and stir again. Repeat once more until all ingredients are incorporated. Batter should be thick but not so thick as cookie soft cookie dough batter (it should look like cake batter).

Grease and flour the mini-bundt pans (Note: Actually this pan is actually a more convenient thing to own if you ask me. Also, I generally flour with actual flour and not the Atkins Mix but if you want to save a few carbs you can also just use non-stick cooking spray). Divide batter between evenly between two mini-bundt pans. This should mostly fill up the pans. Do not overfill! Set extra batter aside.

Bake for about 20-ish minutes or until the cake is set and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Turn the pans over onto a cooling rack and they should pop right out.

What I did like about this recipe

It was the correct texture. Pound cakes are very dense and ones made with Greek yogurt/sour cream have that crispness to them. The cream of tartar also helped with that.

It wasn’t overly sweet. It was sweet enough and I liked it.

Some of you might not like this, but it tasted like a cross between a pound cake and a pancake but I think that’s just because that’s what my mind associates Atkins Mix with!

What I did not like about this recipe

Atkins Mix has this special “peripheral taste” (I don’t call it an after taste because it doesn’t come after you swallow it but while you are eating it). I have not found an adjective to adequately describe it. It’s not a bad taste but not a delicious one either. At any rate, I could taste that. Usually once I’m done tinkering with the mix I can’t taste that anymore. Now, if you use something other than Atkins Mix you are very likely not to get that taste. In retrospect I notice I forgot to add vanilla to my batter so that may have made a difference.

How I think I should proceed with this recipe

I think because the cakes took on the Atkins Mix flavor, I need to make a more flavorful pound cake. I thought the lemon would do it but it did not. I’ve made chocolate pound cake before and I think that might be the way to go here. You’ll see I also did not top the cake itself with anything (although I did put a dollop of whipped cream on my lil’ slice that was the size of half my thumb!). If I make a chocolate one, I could see myself dusting it with some Chike PB powder. That would make an awesome combo!

So why am I telling you all this?

Well, I’ve given you the recipe I used. I’ve given you the method I used to make it and my initial impressions. (NOTE: Every recipe you see on BF goes through this process, by the way, I just don’t usually bore you with the details unless I get stuck!) I’m willing to make these suckers as many times as is necessary to get them right! So if you have a suggestion to help the cause, let me know! Once the recipe is where I want it to be I will publish a final version of it and then you get to make and enjoy it!

The motto of this blog is “play with your food” so let’s get those creative juices flowing!

Winners of the Bariatric Foodie Season of Giving - Week Four!

Firstly thank you, thank you , THANK YOU for rocking this BariMelts giveaway.

Long-time Foodies get sick of this spiel but I do have to reinforce why your participation is important! Getting stuff to give away is not easy. Companies determine what and how much they’ll give away through a blog based on several factors. One of them is the readership size, as told by Google. But I can actually make a more powerful case by citing participation in past giveaways.

In fact, your awesome participation in the Recharge giveaway is part of what I cited to ask BariMelts to give three Foodies the chance to win their products. Because you participate, whether you won or not, you are contributing to our ability to get more and better stuff to give away. And who knows? Next time the winner may be YOU! So keep participating!

I would be remiss not to also THANK BariMelts for participating in the “Bariatric Foodie Season of Giving.” I promise once the product fully launches I will let you all know so you can check them out. But for now, the three Foodies who won the complete line of BariMelts products are:

• Diana Douglas
• Melody Yeary
• Monique Massi

I sent you each an email to let you know how to claim your prize, but just in case you didn’t get it, I need you to email me with your name, address and phone number (for delivery purposes only) to bariatricfoodie@yahoo.com no later than 11:59 p.m. (PST) Sunday, January 5! If I don’t hear from you by then I have to redraw. Don’t make me do that!!!

We have one more giveaway left in the Season of Giving and I’m going to post about it later this evening. Stay tuned, Foodies.

2014 is going to be a GREAT year for us!

BF Top 5: Mistakes You're Making on the Scale (that are driving you crazy!)

I won’t go into my personal history with the scale. Mostly because it’d be a whole blog post (or series of) by itself. What I will say is that this one inanimate object (it really is inanimate people!) seems to wield a lot of power over us – how we think, how we feel about ourselves and, sometimes, what we do or do not eat.

So I thought I’d go over a few “scale mistakes” if you will. Things people do that actually help the scale to drive them crazy. I purposely refrained from putting “weighing every day” on the list. I’ve heard from many of you that you feel you need to weigh every day for accountability and if you are using it to do that, I can’t really argue with that (although I personally don’t do it). But here are a few other scale mistakes I see people make all the time!

You weigh at different times of the day.

In a life existence where two pounds lost or gained can be the difference between elation and utter discontent, it confounds me that people weigh at various points of different days.

There are several reasons why our weight fluctuates throughout the day and they can basically be boiled down to this: you “take in” matter during the day. Matter has weight. That weight will show up on the scale.

If you drink 16 oz. of water right before stepping on the scale, you’re adding a full pound onto your body weight (provided you didn’t use the bathroom before weighing). Each meal you eat adds weight, not necessarily as weight gained but matter that is sitting in your digestive system. And, of course, poop has weight too.

Bottom line: Try to weigh around the same time every day if you MUST weigh every day. That will give you a more accurate idea of how you are progressing.

You weigh several times a day.

Yes, you may see incremental changes but there is no good reason you need to weigh yourself multiple times a day. As I said in the above point, you are more likely to weigh more as the day progresses than less (there are, of course, exceptions to that rule), so unless you like feeling bad about yourself, pick a time, adhere to it and do it once!

Bottom line: Weighing several times a day can be symptomatic of a thinking process that isn’t entirely balanced and healthy. Only you know whether that’s the case for you. If it is, know this: unhealthy thinking (most times) breeds unhealthy behavior. When we work toward a healthy mindset, healthy habits and healthy results are more likely to follow.

You weigh after exercising.

My trainer was the first person to let me know what a bad idea that is (unless, in my opinion, you consistently do it at that time so you can see the overall change and not just the change from before you work out). Especially when strength training, you are tearing muscle and exerting yourself. The body uses many things, including water, to recover from those activities. I’ve had more people than I can count email me distraught because they “gained weight” from exercise.

A small uptick in weight after starting or bumping up an exercise regimen can be normal. NOTE: Excessive gain is NOT. Yes muscle is more dense than fat (it does not weigh more than fat but it is denser) but even that isn’t going to cause a significant weight gain. More than a few pounds that stick around more than a few days and I’d say you may need to look at what you’re doing and adjust (I am, of course, not a nutritionist or a fitness professional, however, so your first step might be to seek out one of the two.)

Bottom line: Exercise can cause weight fluctuations and we should not expect to see instantaneous results on the scale from exercising. So afterward is probably not the best time to weigh, especially if you are weighing several times a day!

You allow the scale to dictate your actions.

Sigh. I used to be guilty of this one myself. If my weight didn’t come in where I wanted it to be, I skipped a meal. Or I exercised long and hard without properly fueling my body (and more than once hurt myself!). I’ve heard of people doing the opposite: being distressed by what the scale says and going on to make unhealthy eating choices or throwing their hands up and saying, “why bother!” with regards to exercise.

Bottom line: Weight loss is a tricky process. It’s not ever something the human body wants to do nor is it what the human body is built to do. Thus, you are going to face challenges. There will be stalls. Long ones. There will be points where you have to push harder, longer and almost reach your breaking point before you see a downward trend on the scale. But take heart. Your body is changing. It’s even possible for your body to be shrinking even if the number on the scale isn’t! But being reactive isn’t going to help. In my nearly 6 years as a post-op I can say I have never, EVER seen that mentality end well.

You avoid the scale altogether.

Yep. I just extolled the possible dangers of weighing too much and here I am talking about weighing too infrequently. But that’s also dangerous. Many times we know when we’re not doing right. And sometimes we avoid the scale because it will confirm what we already know to be true. Maybe you’ve lost control. Maybe it’s been a stressful few weeks. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Bottom line: Well guess what? An important part of living a healthier life is taking responsibility for your actions and deciding what to do next. So you ate two slices of cake over the weekend. So make a plan to work it off! But the only thing avoiding the scale does is fuels your perception of your weight. And that’s where the danger comes in. Having interacted with thousands of post-ops through our blog I can say that we nearly always perceive our weight as higher than it actually is. So if you are going off a higher perceived weight, you are more likely to be depressed about your weight, more likely to react in depression to that weight, more likely to stress about it (and produce cortisol which actually, physically does aid weight gain) and you’re more likely to fall back on unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Instead, get the facts. The data may be painful to look at but at least it’s objective and you can work from reality and NOT perception.

So there you have it. I invite debate about these points. There are probably even more but I highlighted the top five that I see.

The bottom line to this whole post is that, like our surgeries, the scale is a tool to help you get where you want to go. It, in and of itself, does not narrate your success story. Stop giving an inanimate object so much power in your lives!