Soup up your weight loss plan

So...the other day, I was at the doctor. It was my six month checkup. While I did get a license from the doctor to live another six months, one thing became abundantly clear when I stepped on the scales. My efforts to prepare for my role as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Santa Claus were peaking way too early. I definitely needed to slow down on "getting into shape". For those of you who might still be wondering what I am talking about, my "bowl full of jelly" was quickly turning into a 55 gallon drum.

Weight Watchers and I have a relationship that goes back quite a while. Whenever they get a little tight on money, they call me up and say, "Hey, Jim! Why don't you come join us...again!" Well, as much as I admire WW (It really is one of the best ways to lose weight in a healthy manner) I am just having a very hard time getting excited about it. I know that my biggest problem is portion control. Don't get me wrong. I often put the correct portion on my plate. The problem is that the same portion gets put on my second and third plates as well. I am a fast eater. I always have been. The problem with being a fast eater is that one eats way too much before the stomach is able to send the "satisfied" signal to the brain. I like to blame it on the public school system. It seems that the further I went in school, the shorter my lunch period got. After nineteen years of wolfing lunch down, it becomes a habit that is very hard to break. I don't know if that is really the cause of my speed eating, but it does sound like a good excuse. Doesn't it?

This past week two things happened that restarted my weight loss efforts (hopefully, successfully). First, Debbie (my lifetime weight loss partner) brought in a Cooking Light magazine that was chock full of some darn good looking recipes. The second thing was a blog posting I read where the blogger asked his friend how he was successful with his weight loss. The answer was "soup". This person started each meal with a bowl of some type of soup...piping hot. By getting the soup piping hot, he was forced to eat it slowly, allowing his stomach time to fill with water, and send the satisfied signal to the stomach. Thus, he would feel full before he had a chance to eat too much of the entree. Made sense to me. I decided to try some of the Cooking Light recipes, and eat soup first.

I carefully picked out recipes that would be appealing to the whole family. The problem was finding a hot soup that would be appealing, and not be loaded with fat. The other problem with soup, is finding a good hot soup recipe that goes well with summer. I put my thinking cap on. What is one of my favorite soups? I love to get a bowl of wonton soup at the Chinese buffet. It is quite simply a very mild broth with boiled wonton dumplings. I was afraid that might not be too filling, so I tried to think of something that had a little more substance. The end result was Chinese cabbage soup. After some searching, I found a good recipe that I modified considerably, until I had the following.

Chinese Cabbage Soup

Ingredients:
1 Head Chinese Cabbage Chopped (see below for further info.)
1/2 diced onion
1lb ground meat (pork or chicken or turkey)
5 cups chicken broth
5 cups water
2 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp lite soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp white pepper

Brown ground meet in stock pot. Drain any excess fat.  Saute onions until translucent. Add rice wine vinegar. Add water and chicken broth, and bring to a boil. Add chopped cabbage to the pot, and simmer just until soft (about 3-4 minutes). Add soy sauce, sesame oil, and white pepper, stir well and serve.

Here's a little lesson on Chinese cabbage. There are two different plants often referred to as Chinese cabbage. One is bok choy. The other is napa cabbage. For this recipe, use the napa cabbage. Pay attention to the picture below, as the grocery store will often mix the two up.

Napa Cabbage

I added a couple more items to my cabbage soup, just to bulk it up more, and add some color. I just happened to come across some dried red bell peppers and carrots (That's a whole different story). I added about half a cup of each to the soup when I initially allowed it to start coming to a boil. The result ended up being a soup that was very light, but definitely filling.

Chinese Cabbage Soup

I decided to mix continents for the meal. The entree came from Italy, by way of Cooking Light.  We had Shrimp Pasta Florentine. I don't know the exact legalities of posting recipes from publications, so I won't post it here. However, just click on the name of the dish above, and you will go to the website.

That looks good. Doesn't it? I didn't take the picture. That is taken from the Cooking Light website. My dish didn't come out quite that pretty, but it was close. About the only change I made was using Angel Hair pasta instead of fettuccine. I only went that route because I like to get the pasta that tastes like regular, but has added fiber. The particular brand I was looking at did not have fettuccine.

So. I suppose you're wondering how things went. I can say that both recipes were resounding successes on the taste size. As for the hot soup helping to control my appetite, well........

It worked. I wasn't sure I could even down my one portion of shrimp and pasta. Of course, I did. I was NOT going to let that shrimp go to waste, unless it was my own!

I'll keep you informed if this souped up weight loss plan works.

So, What goes well with pork loin...that I actually have?

Apples!

Let me start off by apologizing for the lame title for this post. I was so proud of the meal I cooked Saturday, that I knew I wanted to blog about it. Unfortunately, in the ensuing days, I was not able to come up with a title for this blogpost that I really fancied. So! Since you got this far, you obviously got past the title. Thanks for not holding it against me, and refusing to read my ramblings.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I got up Saturday morning. (I know. that in itself is pretty amazing.) I was facing another four hour shift of grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, and smoked sausages for the Boy Scouts. (I think I now qualify as an expert on those items.) I also knew that there was only a minutely slim possibility that someone else in my family was going to start supper that evening. Therefore, I had to do one of those scary things, and plan ahead. I looked in the freezer, to see what could be put in the slow cooker. Behold! I still had a 2.5lb pork loin just waiting to be cooked. I nuked it in the microwave (on defrost). After all, any good chef would take all possible opportunities to add gamma rays, nuclear radiation, and all that other stuff to their food. That's what gives our dishes that special "glow". Remember that smoked salt I wrote about in another blog. Well, I sprinkled that and some black pepper on the loin and seared it in a skillet until all sides were nicely crisped.

Woohoo! Now I had a partially cooked lump of meat. That's really going to bowl the family over. What to do? What to do? Then my little eye spied a bag with some apples in it. It just so happened that this bag had one of those proverbial rotten apples getting ready to spoil the whole bushel (well...the other five). I took out Mr. Rotten and gave him the heave ho. Then I used the apple corer/slicer on the others. I did not peel the apple. People in my family quickly learn to enjoy fruit and vegetable skins. I hate peeling, unless the skin is just inedible. I then found some baby carrots, and craisins. Craisins are the neatest things. They're just like raisins, but made out of cranberries. The neat thing is they don't go bad...ever....never! That's right, folks, we actually have a food product that could potentially outlast the cockroach population of the world...without the use of preservatives. I mixed all that together with some granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and just a little ground sage. I then put all that stuff on top of the pork loin. Heck! Even raw, this dish was starting to look good.

Fast forward about eight hours. Now we have a slow cooker full of pure heaven.

Oooo, Doggie! supper was gonna be good tonight. There was a problem though. With all that sugar, I still didn't have enough starch! (Calm down! I'm just kidding!) I had some potatoes that were starting to sprout some little vinelets (baby vines, for those of you who don't like me making words up). I decided we needed to have some Potatoes Anna to go with our pork roast.

Potatoes Anna is a fancy sounding name for a classic French peasant dish. It is quite literally just sliced potatoes, salt, pepper, and butter. Don't let that whole peasant dish thing disappoint you. That just means it is the food of the people. Go back to the Middle Ages and you basically had only two classes, aristocracy and peasants. Trust me, you and I would have been in the peasant class, and quite proud of it. They had better food. The peasants were the workers, and those cooking, knew they had to make the food hearty and tasty to provide the nutrition to keep the workers healthy. The other good thing about peasant food was that it was much less likely to contain hemlock or arsenic. Those aristocrats had a nasty habit of trying to kill each other off.

Anyway, Potatoes Anna is just good plain peasant food...and one of the tastiest ways to cook potatoes. It really is quite simple to fix. You basically slice six to eight potatoes as thinly as you can. Once again, they are supposed to be peeled. Once again, I didn't peel them. I find the best cooking dish for these is a good cast iron skillet. Melt a stick of butter. Brush the inside of the skillet with some of the butter, then cover the bottom with a layer of potato slices. Brush that layer with butter, then sprinkle with salt (Use kosher, if you have it. It provides little bursts of flavor you can't get with table salt.) and pepper. Lay down another layer of potatoes and repeat with the butter, salt and pepper. Continue to do this with the rest of the potatoes. If you have any butter left over, drizzle it over the top of everything. You will end up with something like the dish pictured below.

Place some foil over the pan, and put it on a med/hi burner. Cook until you hear sizzling. Continue cooking for about five minutes. You will then transfer the dish to a 425 degree oven and bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Pull the foil off and press the potatoes down with a spatula. Bake uncovered for an additional 25 minutes. You should end up with something like this.

Crispy on the outside. Soft and buttery on the inside. You are supposed to then place a plate over the top and flip, so you can see the nice golden brown bottom. I had just spent four hours flipping burgers, and another two hours cooking supper. (I know! So much for saving time by planning ahead. I also baked a loaf of bread) I was not about to expend my last bit of energy, trying to flip a frickin' twelve inch cast iron skillet. The family would just have to imagine how golden brown it was on the bottom.

Needless to say. We ate very well that night. There wasn't a shred of pork left, and every belly was full. It was worth the effort, but the next day, I let the funny lady at China Royal cook for me.

That's Christina. I am NOT wearing a frilly pink sweater!