I love grilled portobella mushroom sandwiches! Throw on some onions and Laughing Cow cheese…you’ve got a filling meal! Actually any shrooms are pretty “meaty.”
I do agree with the light microwave popcorn thing. Even if you “go nuts” and eat all three bags, it’s something like 800 calories and it takes a lot of crunching and time…pretty satisfying. Also, you don’t get that full, bloated feeling.
A little peanut butter stirred into the oatmeal, topped with diced bananas, works also!
I like popcorn but hate the air-popped stuff. I use a microwave popper which is basically a plastic bowl with a loose-fitting lid; any reasonable facsimile will work. I a couple teaspoons of oil or bacon fat, to the bottom before I put it in the microwave. It takes away that air-popped taste but it is still reasonably low-fat.
Probably not nearly as tasty as your method, but if you have to eat air-popped corn you can make it taste more like stove-popped by spraying it lightly with butter flavored cooking spray ( I suppose any cooking spray would work, but the butter flavor then makes it taste sort of like buttered popcorn* too).
*Sort of, very slightly, well…okay not really so much, but I keep telling myself it tastes like buttered popcorn. 
But it really does help the “air popped” taste to go away.
Muscle Milk Light in chocolate milk flavor is pretty yummy, but it’s also the only one I’ve had. My guy made me shakes before with it, some ice, and skim milk. Makes a pretty good ice/milkshake.
Substitute vegetables for pasta. Steamed, thinly sliced eggplant, pumpkin, squash, zucchini, sweet potato etc becomes spaghetti or any other ribbon pasta. Quartered small potatoes become gnocchi. Widely sliced vegetables become lasagne. Make your sauces as usual. Huge reduction in calories.
I recently discovered this by accident. Make sauces to moisten meals using mashed pumpkin or sweet potato (or anything else you like I suppose). Originally I made a spicy curry chicken and vegetable stirfry and mashed some leftover pumpkin in a splash of coconut milk and stirred it through at the end. I like thick clinging sauces. It was a great success.
I have been able to adapt the principle using the mash like it is a fluid. I usually have some in the fridge. So last night for instance for dinner I had chili and mango chicken which I served over a bowl of undressed Asian salad mix (shredded cabbage, onions, shallots , carrots, celery and greens). After chucking the chicken pieces on top of the salad I stirred some mashed pumpkin around the pan and created a sauce from all the cooked on goodies. I poured this over the whole lot.
I’ve worked out how to make it Asian (coconut milk, Asian spices), Italian (olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, sage, vinegar etc) or Mexican and it has taken over as my default salad dressing. Although the old jar of salsa as salad dressing is still popular.
And using Light Carnation Evaporated Coconut Milk (if you guys have it) to make up Lo-Cal jelly makes an interesting dessert.
I’m loving this thread so far. I want to try out a lot of these suggestions already, but I want more!
I don’t know if this is one of those things that everyone but me has heard of or not, but I just tried it recently and it works great: yogurt parfaits.
I never used to eat enough fruit, but I’m loving this as part of my breakfast. I take a bunch of mixed fresh fruit, about two servings worth works for me. Usually berries but sometimes bananas or melons too. Slap chop that up and stir in a serving of non-fat vanilla yogurt.
I also add in a couple of shakes of an all-natural granola, as I really like the crunch, but that often adds calories and fat rather quickly, so you may with to substitute with GrapeNuts or somesuch.
It’s a nice easy way to get started on getting enough fruit and dairy, and it tastes like a decadent dessert-y treat.
If you are in the mood for fast food, pop into a grocery store and grab one of those whole roast chickens they sell. $5-$6, is good for 2 or 3 meals, and a lot healthier than any other fast food I know of, even if you don’t peel the skin off. Peel the skin off, and it is even healthier.
Quinoa pasta. Tastes more or less like regular pasta, but to me it’s more filling, and chock full of protein and fiber. Alternatives are brown rice or kamut.
Arnold’s multi-grain sandwich thins. 100 calories per serving. Spread with peanut butter and organic fruit spread and you’ve got a high-protein breakfast with fiber to boot.
For many types of cheesy italian dishes, add a package of frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, and the water squeezed out). For example, when making lasagne, add the spinach to the ricotta. You get less cheese per serving, and more fiber. Or, you can add it to salmon cream or alfredo pasta sauce.
Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t magically made fettucine alfredo healthy, but you kind of trick yourself into taking a smaller portion of the sauce.
You can often use evaporated milk instead of cream (for example to make alfredo sauce). For anything whipped it is best to chill the milk first.
If I don’t have a can on hand I will just make up a thick mixture of skim milk powder and water and use that.
One way I have found to stretch my food and reduce calories is to drink lots of water while eating and have some sort of high fibre bread to go with.
Absolutely! I was just coming in to suggest the sandwich thins! They’re quite tasty…and who wants a ton of bread on the sandwich, anyway? Great with veggie burgers or portobellos! Pile on the veggies!
Pureeing some cooked cannellini beans along with a little lemon juice, herbs, garlic etc forms a lovely silky substitute for mashed potatoes - particularly good with fish and offers a good fibre and protein hit.
Second the recommendations for protein powder over porridge or mixed into yoghurt with fruit. I always avoided cottage cheese as the bastard child of so many 70s diets, but mixed with raisins and some chopped nuts/flaxmeal is also a great protein boost, while being low fat - and it’s actually quite tasty.
Also, baking in a paper envelope is a quick easy way to cook dinner with no extra oil - make a pile of vegies on some baking paper, top with chicken or fish, and season with your choice of wine, lemon juice, or a smear of pesto - fold up and bake for 15 min or so.
I use baking paper all the time. Mostly I just crumple up a piece, put it in the bottom of my pan and cook on it, even baking on the stove top.
Recently a friend saw me cooking and asked me about using baking paper because she hadn’t thought about it since the 70s. She told me that, back then, it was marketed in round discs, designed to fit in a pan for oil/fat free frying. I was sure she was full of shit but next time she visited she had the remains of a packet. They recommended “frying” eggs on the stuff.
And, believe it or not, it works. You can crack an egg onto baking paper in a frypan and get a “fried” egg.
Oh and I totally agree about mashing low starch vegetables for a food base - minted peas with lamb, fava beans (stripped) with chorizo etc.
Trader joe’s has a wonderful no-pudge brownie mix, that you can make single serving with vanilla yogurt.
It’s awesome and tastes very fudgey…
Ohhhhh yes, I’m thirding these. I’m partial to the honey wheat, not the 100% whole wheat, which - IMO - are cardboardy.
If you can’t make the switch to wheat bread (I had trouble - pasta and rice were easy, but bread was terrible) try Trader Joe’s 100% white whole wheat bread. Since it’s the softest part of the wheat germ, it has a texture closer to white bread than most super-hearty wheat breads. I use King Arthur’s white whole wheat for baking as well.
I love Annie’s mac&cheese. But I hate their whole wheat versions; they taste terrible. So I buy the reduced sodium boxes and use my own whole wheat macaroni (I like whole food’s house brand 365). Use Smart Balance or (Smart Balance/Butter 50/50 if you love real butter) and voila. The SO loved this.
I make my own dressing from Penzey’s dressing base. It calls for 1 tbsp of mix to 2/3c. oil and 1/3 c. vinegar. I just switched it around and honestly didn’t notice a difference - 2/3c. vinear works just fine for me. Anyone else do this - perhaps with Good Seasons? - I can’t be the only one.
I’m into sausage at the moment - turkey sausage, that is. At least half the fat of regular sausage, and doesn’t have the weird taste that sausage substitutes have.
Homemade vinegarette is the best! And easy, too. You don’t even need a mix - a teaspoon of mustard, a tablespoon of vinegar, 3 Tablespoons oil, put in a jar and shake (or use a whisk… but that’s a little more trouble). Add whatever spices/herbs you want, perfect! You can also experiment with different types of vinegar, flavored vinegar adds a lot.
And yeah, you can change around the percent of oil & vinegar, too, if you are watching fat (I personally don’t… I’m a carb watcher… but I know it’ll work).
Athena, dry mustard or yellow or dijon? I have all three, so whatever you tell me, I’ll try it tonight. Never heard of mustard in dressing!
Where do you buy baking paper or how is it labeled at the store, or do you simply use parchment?
Also, how does one bake on the stovetop? This I’m really curious about.
What, you’ve never had honey-mustard dressing? A classical French vinaigrette involves mustard; I usually use Dijon. The classic 3 parts oil:1 part acid (vinegar/citrus juice) is definitely a matter of taste. I prefer a 1:1 ratio, because I find it lighter and less, well, oily, but it needs some sweetener because all the sour acid stuff, so I add a bit of honey or sugar.
You can vary the oil (try olive and nut oils as well as your flavorless oil of choice) and the acid (red and white wine vinegars, cider vinegar, rice vinegar, sherry vinegar, flavored vinegars like tarragon or raspberry, lemon or lime juice, etc.), and experiment with other flavorings at will (minced shallots are classic, or try smashing a clove of garlic and letting it soak in the dressing for ten minutes (remove before dressing the salad); you can also add minced ginger/garlic, soy sauce, minced herbs, a bit of toasted sesame oil, or anything else that seems tasty.) It’s an incredibly useful basic recipe to have in your repertoire, because you can vary it so widely and put it on so much stuff. Aside from salads, try vinaigrettes on simply cooked vegetables, fish, or chicken.
Prepared mustard, and I like dijon, but any mustard will do. It’s fun to experiment with different types.
Other than that… what GilaB said. You can go wild with stuff to put in vinegarettes, it’s really hard to truly mess them up.