Poll Results: Coconut Macaroons and Covert Baking

~by Nikki

I asked. You voted! And I am going to pass off my sugar free coconut macaroons to my non-op family and friends!

But I think you guys let me off a bit easy. Because I didn’t really have to write up a post since we already have these cookies on the blog.

So…to assuage my deep sense of guilt over this, I wanted to go into a subject that is near and dear to my heart – covert cooking. Or, in this case, covert baking.

What is it? And why do it?

I define covert baking as baking a traditionally unhealthy treat using healthier ingredients and (here’s the defining part) giving them away as if they were the original version.

Why do it? Well, for me it’s cathartic. Non-ops put me through a lot of changes on a daily basis and doing this is my way of “sticking it to them” in a constructive manner. I mean imagine it, your aunt who insists on making dishes you can’t eat for EVERY family gathering. You are handing her an uber-healthy cookie and smiling sweetly as she walks away. Then the pinnacle of the experience is months later when she openly shows her disdain for healthy substitutes and you go, “but you raved about my sugar free cookies that I gave you for Christmas…” (Bat eyes sweetly and smile. It’s priceless people…it really is…).

It’s a way of getting back without being mean. I mean, really? What is mean about giving someone healthy food? It’s sort of a “kill them with kindness” deal.

Now let’s go over what covert baking does not mean:

1. It does not mean sugar-free (necessarily). There are plenty of substitutes for sugar. You can use honey, agave nectar, or Stevia. All are acceptable substitutes for sucrose. If you don’t understand anything I just said, check out our “Sugar Shock” series for the low down.
2. It does not mean high protein (necessarily). Yes, I know it would be icing on the cake to slip someone a protein enhanced dish but think of this…protein powder ain’t cheap and do you really want to waste it on someone who won’t appreciate it?
3. It is not meant to re-invent the wheel. That is to say, here on BF we do a lot of re-imagining food, especially when we can’t have it in the exact form we had it before. In covert baking, that would sort of defeat the point. Your goal is to make it look, act, smell and taste like the original as closely as possible.

Some tips on covert baking:

1. Embellishment. Make things look pretty and they taste that much better.
2. Like I said, don’t go overboard. Just make a few sensible swaps that don’t drastically affect the taste and texture of what you are making.
3. This is not for you! So while you can taste test…remember the point is to give it away!
4. Discretion! It’s hard to contain yourself as you give away your treats, I know. But the fun is in keeping it to yourself until just the right moment. Recognize that this moment may never arrive and you might just have to giggle behind people’s backs about this forever, k?

In the very near future I’ll give some tips about covert cooking. It’s a similar endeavor but there are some challenges specific to covert cooking that we’ll cover.

As for the cookies…I’ll report back on how they were received. They already have the post-op seal of approval from my good friend Pam, who received some as a gift this past summer. So I’m sure they’ll get rave reviews among my loved ones. Especially my stepdad…who delighted in frying bacon and stinking up the whole house when I was only four days post-op! Take THAT stepdaddy! ;)

BF Top 5: Winning Christmas Side Dishes

~by Nikki

In my family, Christmas dinner isn’t exactly dinner. It’s more like a compilation of appetizers. We have a very laid back holiday tradition. The divas and I open presents at home, then we trek to my mom’s house where we open presents there, watch movies and eat…all while never getting out of our pajamas (we literally drive there in our pj’s).

BUT…on Christmas Eve I throw a big dinner for the divas' paternal family (who rarely get to see them on the actual day). Right after my surgery, I resigned myself to making regular versions of dishes and just refraining from them (or partaking in tiny amounts for fear of getting sick).

But more and more lately, I’ve been “passing” dishes as regular when they are actually WLS friendly. The key is to make sure it still tastes good. And don’t tell anyone it’s healthy!!! (Yes, I know I sound like a broken record, but it really is an important point).

At any rate, you want something you can eat at Christmas dinner, am I right? Well, here’s some suggestions for dishes that will meet both your family and your pouch’s approval.

Jen’s Green Bean Casserole
This thing was the overwhelming hit of the 2010 Pouch Party™ Holiday Preview. We still get e-mails from people who have tried it and loved it! With a few simple swaps, your casserole can work for you, not against you!



Nik’s Cheesy Mashed Cauliflower

This recipe is for Nik’s mashed cauliflower cups, but you could just as easily transfer your cauliflower and veggies to a baking dish, cover it with cheese and bake it as a side dish. For a bit of indulgence, go for pork bacon and add about ½ c. of Greek yogurt to your cauliflower mixture for added creaminess.

Jen’s Corn Pudding


Because seriously? This stuff is goooooooooood. It’s rich and creamy and…just everything you THINK post-op food is not supposed to be. But it is!

Nik’s Corn, Okra and Tomatoes




This isn’t a traditional Christmas dish…but it is red and green! And yummy too. It’s packed with vitamins and flavor, so it’s something you can feel good about your whole family enjoying.

Jen’s Butternut Squash Soup

This makes a great starter for any meal…but especially a holiday meal. It’s warm, creamy and screams “comfort!”

These are five sure-to-please dishes that even the pickiest eaters in your family will love. They go with just about any meat, poultry, or fish, so no matter what protein you're serving as the main dish, these will complement it nicely. Happy Holidays!

Nik's Snappy Spinach & Bacon Dip

~by Nikki



This year I actually made time to attend my support group's annual Christmas party (not to be confused with the Bariatric Reunion that just occurred a few weeks ago). We'd all been invited to bring a WLS-friendly goodie to share. I offered to bring two. Damn over-achiever in me! (I'll post the other side dish another day)

Spinach dip isn't new (although I did take some inspiration from Jen's Spinach & Bacon Pie for my flavoring). But I always saw room for improvement in this thing. And not just adding Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. There's room to really amp this thing up! So I played with it and played with it and here's what I came up with!

Nik's Snappy Spinach & Bacon Dip

Ingredients:

Large acorn squash or pumpkin, hollowed (for serving...hey...it's better than a bread bowl)
8 oz. 1/3 less fat cream cheese (Neufchatel cheese)
1 c. unflavored Greek yogurt
1 pkg. dry ranch dip
2 scoops Any Whey unflavored protein powder
6 slices pre-cooked bacon
1 can of spinach (or package frozen spinach, thawed)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Optional: I add a few extra shakes of garlic powder...just cuz I like garlic. Your choice though)

Directions:

In a bowl, cream together cream cheese, Greek yogurt, dry ranch mix and protein powder.

Check out my Old Skool Sunbeam mixer...I heart this thing and am keeping it forever!!!

Strain thawed spinach using a colander and heavy duty paper towels. Add to the cheese mixture, along with bacon pieces. Mix very well. In the interest of the new post-ops I'd probably be interacting with, I sorta obliterated mine.



Hollow out your gourd (this is a good thing to do the day before). Scoop out the innards and then sprinkle the insides with salt. Place on a rack and let it drain into a bowl overnight. The next day you'll have an ocean of water and a relatively dry gourd. Remember to wipe out the excess salt!

Once you've done all that and your dip is ready, spoon  the mixture into your pumpkin or gourd and refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.

Now here is the one and ONLY Martha Stewart-esque tip I know. See how the outer skin of the squash (in this case an acorn squash) is sort of matte looking? Well glossing it up is easy! Just give your squash a mayo bath!

Just take a paper towel and put some mayo on it and rub down the outside of your gourd...

And then it comes out all shiny and purdy like so:

For the 99.9% of you that have more common sense than me...yes you can do this before putting the dip into the gourd!

Now folks always ask me what I use as dippers for these things. Well, I am a carrot fanatic, so that's my usual choice. I also put out whole-wheat crackers for my support group peeps (cuz we ain't afraid of no [complex] carbs!). But you can also set out other veggie crudites (some favorites: red bell pepper strips, celery, cauliflower, raw broccoli).

This dip was a hit at the party! I only have a little bit of it left. It was a great time with some really good food. If I can convince my support group peeps to do it, I'd like to share the recipe to some of their party favorites that they brought. Stay tuned.

This is my GORGEOUS friend Quiana (who...I believe...is 6 years post-op RNY) partaking of the spinach dip. 

BF Top 5: Holiday Gift Ideas for the Cook or Foodie

~~posted by Jen


Still finishing up the last minute items on your list for the holiday shopping? Me, too! Missing so much work this year, my finances aren't as stellar as I wish they were. But that's ok! I made lots of the "extra" gifts this year, like the Soup In A Jar and Romantic Dinner In A Basket. Those were perfect for the mail carrier, neighbors, mechanic, hairdresser, and even my boss!

I have a couple more that I'll share with you later this week, for the last minute gifts on your list. If your money situation is anything like mine this year, some of your "big-ticket" gifts have had to wait until the very last minute. I still need to get something for my amazing StepMom, who happens to be a terrific cook AND a foodie. So I was browsing around online for some ideas, and here are a few I came across.

If there's a special someone on your list that loves food and cooking, this is the Top 5 for you!

Top 5 Holiday Gift Ideas for the Cook or Foodie


#1. A set of really good knives. Y'all know how I am about my kitchen gear, so I consider myself something of an expert on this subject. I have this set of knives and they are awesome. They stay sharp, hold up fine in the dishwasher, and the handles are excellent when you're doing lots of chopping. Whether you love Rachael Ray or loathe her, I have to tell you her kitchen products are excellent! I have everything from the knives to the cookware, and I absolutely adore all of it. A great stocking stuffer would be a bench scraper with a small cutting board.


 #2. A Wine of the Month Club Membership. Most true foodies also love wine, or at the very least COOKING with wine, so this would be a unique gift and open up new areas of exploration for them. Not to mention the perfect excuse for them to throw an impromptu wine & cheese tasting party every few months! The perfect stocking stuffers? A wine opening set and some cheese spreaders.


#3. A Complete Set of Cookware. This is the Rachael Ray set that I covet. I have a few of the open stock pieces, and am hoping to get myself the complete set one of these years. I am very picky about cookware (like all my skillets are either Calphalon or Farberware, I won't use any others) and have the original Genesis set from Pampered Chef that I've had for probably 10 years. I do have a few pieces of Le Creuset, but even with all the cooking I do, I still don't have a complete matched set. From my experience, very few cooks do. Some nice utensils would be a neat stocking stuffer, or maybe even Cooking Mama for Wii.

#4. Foodie Bling. These would be neat for that "Foodie Guy who Has Everything" on your list. (Is it me, or does practically everyone have at least one friend from college who fits this description?) These are sterling silver gourmet chef cufflinks! How cool! They'd be the perfect "stocking stuffer big gift", maybe give a nice dress shirt under the tree? Perfect for a snappy dresser who also likes to cook. (Stephen from Top Chef, I'm thinking.)

#5. A Gourmet Gift Basket. Sometimes even the most dedicated cooks need a night off, and no self-respecting foodie would say no to an igourmet goody basket. This is one of those "can't miss" gifts, and it ain't no Hillshire Farms summer sausage basket! That special foodie on your list will appreciate the thought and consideration you put into a gift like this. The perfect stocking stuffer accompaniment? How about a subscription to Bon Appetit or Food and Wine?

There you have it, our Top 5 Ideas for a fantastic holiday gift for the cook or foodie in your life. Amazon still guarantees delivery in time for Christmas if you select 2-day shipping, so get clicking!

Nik's Curried Fish Stew

~by Nikki

True fact: Jen did NOT used to like curry...I have made her into a curry convert! After trying this you might convert too!

It’s a truly extraordinary day when Giada De Laurentis gives you a cultural lesson that really inspires you. But it happened to me! I was watching her show (Giada at Home) and she was preparing a holiday meal for her family.

As she tells us (ad nauseum), she is Italian, and on Christmas Eve Italian American families celebrate what they call “the Feast of Seven Fishes.” (Apparently this is thought to have originated in southern Italy but is not observed widely in Italy…but is observed among the Italian-American population). The menu consists of…you guessed it…seven seafood dishes (doesn’t that sound like it should be part of the “12 Days of Christmas”?).

Anyway…the dish I’m about to share with you…probably wouldn’t make it onto an upstanding Italian-American dinner table on Christmas Eve, but the uniqueness of the feast did inspire me to remember another global culinary tradition from years ago.

I used to work with a wonderful lady from Liberia and we used to walk down to our local open air market together (think farmer’s market that’s inside that’s open all year round every day). She used to go to the fish monger and buy a big bag of salmon heads for $1.50. It was HUGE. One day I asked her what she did with the salmon heads. She said she made fish soup with them. Come to find out, the head of the fish contains a lot of flavor.

Well…this dish isn’t a replication of that either. Try though I might, I cannot bring myself to extract a fish’s eyeballs.

So how does this dish relate to ANY of what I just told you? Well…it’s a unique fish dish that I tried to make festive for the holidays AND it’s a fish soup (before I met the colleague I’d never heard of fish soup…clams? Yes? Crab? Oh yes. Fish? Not so much).

Nik’s Curried Fish Stew
(Family Style = big pot. You can halve it if it’s too much)

Ingredients

About 5 cups of any combination of veggies of different colors that you like (in mine I used zucchini, yellow squash, onions and a bag of “Sunrise Slaw” mix – basically julienned carrots and cabbage)

Six 4 oz. tilapia filets (just get one of the bags of individually wrapped ones and use them all)

2 garlic cloves, minced

6 cups water

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (Jen just fainted dead away…YES I use olive oil sometimes!)

2-4 tablespoons curry powder (depending on how strong you like your curry flavor)

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes (if you like a little heat. If not, leave it out!)

Salt and pepper, to taste

NOTE: I did not use curry powder. One of my good friends, Mike, gave me a box of this stuff:

This stuff = YUMMY!

It works basically like a bouillion cube. You throw it in liquid and it melts down into a thick, rich, SPICY curry sauce. I imagine they have it in mild as well. If there is an international or Asian market in your area, look for it!

Directions:

Put a large pot on medium flame and add oil. Toss your onions in there and get them to sweating.

See all the veggie goodness going on in there???

One thing that made this soup really appealing to me is that I used a lot of cutting methods for my veggies. The carrots and cabbage were julienned, the yellow squash was in long strips, the zucchini was sliced into rounds and the onions were rough chopped. The total effect was very nice…anyhoo…

Add the rest of your veggies once the onions start to yellow a bit. Then throw your tilapia filets on top. It’s ok if they are still frozen. Let that sautee for about 3 minutes or so.



Add enough water to just cover the top piece of fish. Add your curry powder, a bit of salt and pepper (be judicious, you can always add salt, it’s hard as hell to take it away! If you do find the “curry in a box” don’t add any salt. It’s plenty seasoned enough.)

Bring the whole thing to a boil, stir and then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for about 25 minutes or until the fish is cooked all the way through.

Serve hot and celebrate the wonderful inspiration that Giada De Laurentis brings with her everywhere she goes! (Oh yeah...I can feel it!)