Diet, Cooking, and Exercise: Dining Out Healthy, and Tostadas Revisited

Dining Out

Saturday I mentioned to my wife that I missed going to the Chinese buffet and had even looked on the Panda Express web site for their nutritional information and how I wished I could come up with something that wouldn’t wreck my diet. All she heard was “going to the Chinese buffet” and started getting dressed. I was trapped. When we arrived she headed for the buffet and the garlic shrimp while I negotiated with the waitress, a former student, for no fat, no added salt, and low calorie options. Schezwan tofu with steamed vegetables and steamed rice seemed to fit the bill. The spicy tofu was delicious and I ate half of it, all the vegetables, and about a cup of steamed white rice. I estimated about 600 mg for sodium and hadn’t anticipated the 14 grams of fat in the tofu as I usually cook with NaySoya Lite tofu with only 7.5 grams of fat for the whole package. My diet was still intact.

Friday, the college board of directors hosted our annual appreciation luncheon. The menu was chicken fettuccine alfredo, roasted potatoes, salad, and orange cake. I brought my own four ounce portion of chicken Cordon Bleu, some steamed vegetables with Brussels sprouts, and my own salad dressing for the salad. While I was a little self-conscious and was tolerated by the faculty and staff members I shared a table with, some of the board members congratulated me on my weight loss and expressed appreciation that I was sticking to my diet.

Tostadas Revisited

Deborah commented and took me to task on my Non-fat Refried Beans and Healthy Tostada post for forgetting, “the salsa, or pico de gallo, or chopped tomatoes”. While I did forget them in the article, I remembered them when I ate them. I did have chopped tomatoes and green salsa. This time it was bottle green taco sauce, but when I have the time, I like to make my own salsa verde. To further elaborate, the timing on the tortillas in the oven should be about 12-15 minutes depending on the degree of browning you like. I left them in the oven at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes and turned them several times.

Salsa Verde

Here is my salsa verde recipe. One year at Christmas I made gift packs of four salsas, this one, my Polynesian Salsa, and two red ones. The gift was a big hit.

Ingredients

10 Tomatillos with husks removed
1 Serrano chili pepper
2 Jalapeno peppers, seeded
½ Onion-chopped
2 T chopped cilantro
3 T lemon juice

The original recipe included olive oil and salt. This recipe doesn’t suffer in the least from their omission.

Blanch the tomatillos and chili peppers for two minutes in boiling water, drain, and puree in the food processor. Drain and add remaining ingredients.

This recipe makes about two cups and contains 11.47 calories, .27 g protein, 1.62 g carbohydrates, .23 g fat, and .47 mg sodium per two tablespoon serving.

Here are my dietary recaps for the last three days.