I love Brussels sprouts, and even my girlfriend, who is not a very adventurous eater, and doesn’t care for most vegetables, will eat them when I cook them.
The proper way to cook them is to get them fresh, slice them in half, and fry them in butter or bacon fat. Don’t go until they’re mushy, but make sure they’re cooked through. They have a strong bitter flavor when raw.
Steamed Brussels sprouts with hollandaise sauce is pretty good, too. 
Nope. It was Los 3 Amigos.
You can also steam or boil them, but the important thing is not to overcook them. Like other members of the cabbage family, they get that horrible sulfurous taste when overcooked.
Ok, I just had to check because I went to a restaurant in Rhinelander, WI called El Tapatio and had an identical experience. The “enchiladas” consisted of unseasoned ground beef wrapped in corn tortillas and covered with a ketchupy sauce.
My dining partner ordered one of their “combination” meals and was horrified to find it all jammed into one large bowl!
/hijack
Actually chichrrones/pork skins are processed and there is pretty much no flavor and very little pork flavor to them. I have had panko with more flavor. They are absolutely NOTHING like cracklings, which is sort of what they are emulating…
And not all atkins recipes are nasty. What is nasty about an omelette made with 2 eggs, a largish pinch of extra sharp cheddar cheese, about a tbsp of bacon crumbles, about a large pinch of italian seasonings and a teaspoon of either water or cream? Perfectly acceptable atkins. If you make a crustless spinach onion and bacon quiche, it is perfectly good atkins food. How about ice cold shrimp with homemade extra zesty cocktail sauce? Again atkins. I have a killer recipe for splenda sweetened merengue cookies that taste just like the sugar version. Deviled eggs are perfect atkins food. Poached salmon in lemon butter in a bed of spinach and wild rice is also atkins…
Dude, dont knock it until you try real food.
I’m glad to know I’m not the only person who mentally rewrites that scene with other “Spectacular” things.
Recipes cards from 1974 are hardly obscure, I think, but then again I am waiting to inherit a kitchen-full of cookbooks from the 70s through the 90s, some maybe older.
And I bought myself a cookbook from 1950s called The Cook is in the Parlor. It’s equal parts really delicious sounding recipes made from scratch, and dishes that start with an expensive main ingredient (sole, a whole salmon) and end with canned condensed cream of [whatever] soup.
My late great-aunt Marge once boiled T-bone steaks. No one has been able to explain why.
I was on a diet as a youngster around the disco days. Everyday, I would get to pack myself a plain little melba toast and cheese (kraft singles) sandwich for lunch. The worst part is that I had a leaky thermos and more often than not my Iced Tea (plain, no sugar) would leak from the thermos and I’d end up with a soggy Melba Toast, American cheese, and Iced Tea Sandwich. Pretty Sad, no?
(Hell, yea I ate it… I was on a diet and starving.)
Melba toast sucks.
Of course, Weight Watchers doesn’t make you to eat fake foods. You track what you DO eat and fit that within a certain number of points for the day/week. I did Weight Watchers and did not find it necessary to use any of the items you mentioned. They teach everything in moderation, not substitution, in my experience. Certainly there are people who do exactly what you said, but it’s not what WW is about, IMHO.
At any rate, fat free hot dogs. Holy crap, is there a grosser thing on the planet? We tried Oscar Myer, Healthy Choice, and some other weird brand but my husband can’t find a brand that isn’t disgusting. He likes dogs, but they’re too high in fat for him to eat even occasionally due to health related dietary restrictions. He’s pretty much had to just face that he can no longer have them.
Have you tried any of the vegetarian hot dogs? Some of them aren’t bad, and they’re very low fat/high protein.
Clearly you have not tried Hebrew National 99% Fat Free Kosher hot dogs. 1 Point on WW, and better than some full-fat dogs.
My in-laws always order their beef filets well-done. My husband used to also, until I let him try my medium-rare steak when we were dating. He likes his a little more medium, but at least he’s not eating shoe leather anymore.
OK, yes, I agree that WW and dieting in general does not require you to use bizarre Frankenfoods. As aruvqan said, even diets that cut out entire food groups don’t require it. You just have to accept that you’re not going to eat desserts, or bread, or whatever, and live with it. The crazy, disgusting stuff comes when people try to twist their allowed ingredients into dishes they were never meant to compose, or make desserts with near zero calories and such.
But I do think, while technically WW doesn’t tell you to eat fake foods, it does encourage it. First, WW has a large line of chemically altered foods, many of which are sold at meetings. And more importantly, they cut calories so radically (to give people fast results and keep them coming), that it’s hard to avoid feeling hungry, and you wind up looking for the highest volume/calorie ratio, while feeling deprived enough that desserts and other “naughty” foods become really tempting.
But yes, if you embrace the inherent yumminess of vegetables, fruit, and whole grains, and try to reasonably limit added sugar and animal fat, you can lose weight and be healthier, without ever going near fat free cheese. Thank goodness!
JimmyFlair, LOL at roast beef sawdust and vinegar wine!
Honestly, I don’t have a problem with people who don’t like rare beef. Hey, it’s personal taste. But why not just order a hamburger or meatloaf then? Why pay extra money for flavor that will be destroyed?
Maybe this is too evident to be explictly stated … but I think the reason 1974 Weight Watchers recipe cards are on the internet is not the result of whole-scale transferral of everything in the physcial world to the internet, but more a result of the eye-popping hideousness of the contents. See James Lileks’ Gallery of Regrettable Food.
Oh, devilsknew, I was your partner in pre-teen dieting with those damned Melba Toast. As if being chubby isn’t a sad enough thing, then punishment in the form of sawdust crackers gets heaped upon you.
Those WW cards made me laugh so hard that I really did have tears running down my face and I got 2 calls here at my desk that I couldn’t pick up. (OK, the truth is that I got a call, picked up the receiver as I tried to get myself under control, spied “Mackarelly” and had to hang up the phone without speaking because I was giggling again. Then the person called back and I let it go to voicemail.)
Diet margaine is what evil tastes like. When I was young, my sister made diet chocolate chip cookies using diet margarine and sugar substitute.
The kicker? She made these on more than one occasion.
[QUOTE=Cat Fight]
Came in here to post this! Bleccch.
Pretty much any recipe from ol’ Dr, Atkins is vomit-inducing (in fact, that is apparently one of the ways low carb dieting works for some people – after eating so much meat and cheese, they’re too nauseous to be hungry).
The grossest have got to be the desserts featuring pork rinds. Including this gem (from here):
She has been lied to. No god, benevolent or otherwise, would ever let a follower eat that.
Ugh. My wife and I tried the “fake mashed potatoes made out of cauliflower” thing once. Once. We did exactly what they said, and we battered the bejeezus out of it in the food processor. And then we tried it. GOD it was disgusting. I kept adding salt, and more salt, and more, hoping that at some point it would become palatable, or at least vaguely foodlike. But no, it was like eating Cream of Wheat afterbirth.
In general, any food that’s intended to “pretend” or “substitute” for another when you’re dieting is going to be a huge disappointment. I don’t understand why people do it. Look, if you’re going to be a vegetarian, why do you have to pretend that you’re eating a hamburger? Munch on your lawn clippings and be happy. If you’re going to low-carb, why do you have to pretend that you’re eating mashed potatoes? Choke down your 112th serving of chicken and be happy. Pretending only leads to sadness.
Because I like the taste but don’t think it is worth something having to DIE? And for the record, I don’t “pretend that I’m eating a hamburger” I fully embrace the fact that I’m eating a veggie burger. Or veggie bacon strips or whatever.
Well, the cauliflower thing doesn’t really work if you think it’s going to taste like potatoes. It tastes like cauliflower puree, which I don’t happen to mind. It does need quite a bit of salt though, and some butter. And maybe a bit of parmesan cheese. I just used it for something with a smooth texture and mild flavor, the same way I would use squash puree or creamed spinach.
erm … I think “Fluffy Mackeral Pudding” made my brain explode.