Thanksgiving Done Healthy: Apricot Brussels Sprouts

A bushel of Brussels Sprouts

I've talked about Brussels sprouts before.  I bring them up again, because they are something we have at Thanksgiving, even though they're normally the slimy fish head ones and nobody really eats them.  It reminds me of my Thanksgiving as a kid.

I was, surprise, a picky eater.  We went to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving every year, and I loved it. She lived on a "farm" with turkeys, chickens and goats.  I think she had a cow at one point.  I loved playing with the chickens and the turkeys.   One year, some of my out of state family came a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  We went to visit my aunt early so we could see them.  I chased the turkeys around and played with their softball (they thought it was an egg, I remember my aunt remarking how incredibly stupid they were for sitting on it like it was an egg).  Then we went home.

A few weeks later, on Thanksgiving, I noticed that one of the turkeys was missing.  I normally only played with the animals on Thanksgiving, so I never remembered from year to year how many turkeys there were. I asked and was told, in a nice way, that he was in the oven.  Once I realized what this meant, I cried.  My aunt apologized and said that was just the way things were on a farm.  Where did I think turkey came from?  To be honest, I had never really thought about it.  We got ours from Kroger.  They weren't fun to chase at Kroger.

That Thanksgiving, and for a long time after, I would barely eat anything my aunt cooked.  I didn't care if it was a vegetable tray.  I assumed my aunt had murdered whatever it was on the plate.  I never liked to play with her animals again.  I assumed they were just there to be lunch.  I remember asking, "Did this come from a store or from your yard?" before I ate anything (for some reason, I still thought food from a store was different than food from her lawn). 

We started bringing a dish to Thanksgiving and I'd eat that.  My mom was no murderer.  That's a tradition I carry out today whenever I go to someone's house for a big dinner party.  Even though I'm no longer a strict vegetarian or a vegan, I know I'm still picky.  I always mention my diet to people, but they normally make something I don't like anyway.  It's not their fault.  Besides, I don't expect non-vegetarians to think of things like beans, broth or gelatin being non-vegetarian.  They just don't.  It's not being hateful to serve me pan gravy or mashed potatoes cooked with chicken stock, because they didn't think about it being non-vegetarian. So, I always ask if I can bring a dish (if appropriate), or just shut up eat what I can.  I can always eat something else later.  There's no sense in making a scene and ruining their dinner.  My diet is not really their problem.  Especially on Thanksgiving.  People have Thanksgiving traditions that are bigger than my dietary constraints.

If I were bringing a dish to Thanksgiving dinner this year, I think I'd bring these Brussels sprouts.  We sometimes make a dish with green beans and apricot sauce for Thanksgiving.  It's divine, but I love green beans.  I decided to try the sauce on Brussels sprouts, something most that people don't give a fair shot.  It's delicious and I think the apricot bits would be tempting to even Brussels sprouts haters.

The crunchy roasted Brussels sprouts and the bits of apricot are divine.

Apricot Brussels Sprouts
4 ounces dried apricots
1 cup orange juice
1 bushel of Brussels sprouts

1. Roast Brussels sprouts (here is how).
2. While they are roasting, place the apricots and orange juice in a sauce pan and simmer until the apricots are tender.
3. Puree the orange juice and apricots until smooth.  If you want chunky sauce, as pictured, remove 3-4 apricots and chop them.
4. Remove the Brussels sprouts to a serving bowl and toss with the apricot sauce. 

Easy! Great tasting too.  These would be a much bigger hit than those slimy ones.  Since I roasted them first, they still have that roasted flavor, with a hint of sweetness from the apricots/orange juice.

I think I'm kind of obsessed with Brussels sprouts.  I found a stalk of Brussels sprouts at the store the other day for just $3.79.  The stalk keeps the sprouts fresher, so they store longer.  They're easy to remove from the stalk.  You just twist them and pop them off. 

Another recipe for Brussel sprouts that I've tried recently is cheesy Brussels sprouts.  I subbed them in a green bean dish my mom makes for Thanksgiving.  She puts a can or two of french cut green beans in a casserole dish and pours heavy cream in the casserole dish until it covers the bottom.  She sprinkles it with a generous amount of Parmesan cheese, mixes it all together and bakes until it's brown.  I used Brussels sprouts instead of green beans, and it was heavenly. It would be a Thanksgiving hit for sure.

Yup, I'm having Brussels sprouts this year.

Cold Weather Comfort: Vegetarian Lasagna Soup

Lasagna in a bowl and a cheese crisp

I've went off my whole foods diet a little with Halloween. I ate more than my fair share of candy and cupcakes.  However, I'm sworn off unhealthy foods until Thanksgiving.  I think I should eat whatever I want to on the day of a holiday, so all bets are off on Thanksgiving day.  I'll write more about that later.  Now that the weather is getting cooler and fresh, local produce is harder to find I think it's soup season.

I saw a recipe for a soup that was supposed to taste like lasagna in a bowl.  Yum!  However, the soup was made for meat eaters (it was mostly meat, pasta and tomatoes).  I modified it and made it vegetarian and cut back a bit on the pasta.

I think modifying recipes is one of the things you need to learn to do when you're trying to eat healthier.  You can't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen, and soup is an easy thing to experiment with.  A lot of people still act shocked when I tell them I didn't use a recipe or that I modified a recipe.  A friend said, "You might as well just throw some crap in a bowl if you're not going to go by the recipe exactly."  Well, I agree with her.  You might as well throw some crap in a bowl.  What's the worst thing that is going to happen? You'll waste a few ingredients? The best thing?  You might end up with an awesome dish.

My problem is that since starting this blog, I've had to write down what I do.  Which is good, I guess. It means if I make something good I can repeat it.   For this soup, I just made a soup of what I normally put in my lasagna.

Instead of the goupy cheese the original recipe had on top, I made a crispy cheese "cracker."  I like a crunch in my soup.  I love goldfish crackers in soup, but they don't fit a healthy diet.  When I was a junk food vegetarian, I lived on goldfish.  I always had a bag around.  Straight Parmesan cheese "crackers" satisfy that goldfish craving nicely.  It's not the wheat I loved, but the crunchy, cheesy, saltiness.

My onions are big because I pick them out, but I like the flavor. I'm weird.

The first time I made this soup, I made it without the pasta.  I found adding just a little bit of pasta gave it more body (it mostly disintegrated and just made the broth more substantial). You could leave the pasta out entirely if you wanted to be gluten free, and it would still taste good.  I cooked my soup in a crockpot.  I love crockpots for soups.  The pasta would hold up better in a regular pot.


Vegetarian Lasagna Soup

2 tsp olive oil
3 cup chopped onions
2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 chopped bell pepper
1 cup of chopped broccoli florets
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes (try to find one without sugar added, they do exist)
2 bay leaves
6 cups vegetable stock
1/2 c. finely chopped fresh basil leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 handful of crushed lasagna noodles
2 cups of spinach

1.  Add everything except the noodles and the spinach to your pot or crockpot.  It's that easy to make soup. Really.
2. In a crockpot, cook on low for 3-4 hours.  In a regular pot, you probably only need to cook it for an hour or so.
3. Throw the noodles and spinach into the pot in the last 30 minutes for the crockpot or the last 15 minutes in a regular pot.  
4. Remove the bay leaves before serving.
5. Top with a cheese cracker (below).  You can also toss in a tablespoon full of cottage cheese before serving if you want even more cheese.  Ricotta will work too, but cottage cheese is a little healthier and much better at satiating you.  For the amount here, it won't matter much. 

Cheese "Crackers"
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Flat mounds

1. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.
2. Mound the cheese in 4 separate areas. Flatten the tops so the piles look even.
3. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until starting to brown.  
4. Because of the mozzarella, these won't get "hard" like crackers, but I like them for soup.  If you want a harder cracker, straight Parmesan will crisp up. (just use a whole cup of Parmesan). 

This is how brown they should be.

It really does hit the lasagna spot, and look how healthy it is.  As with everything, these nutrtional values depend on the products you use.  I read the labels on a bunch of broth and canned tomatoes when I was at the store last.  The carb and calorie content varies widely between them.  Some of the canned tomato brands are loaded with corn syrup or other sugars.  I used my own stock (vegetable stock is easy to make), but canned tomatoes are one thing I buy.  There's no sense in making your own if tomatoes aren't in season, and not all canned tomatoes are loaded with junk.  You just really need to read the labels.

Nutrition Facts for Vegetarian Lasagna Soup

---

Amount Per Serving (serves 6)

Calories:  192

Total fat: 10.7 g

Protein: 9.3 g

Total carbohydrate:  17.5 g

• Dietary Fiber: 3.3 g
• Sugar: 3.9 g

Nutrition Facts for Cheese Crackers

---

Amount Per Serving (serves 4)

Calories:  105

Total fat: 8 g

Protein: 8 g

Total carbohydrate:  1 g

Get Steamed: Steamed Banana Pudding

Yum, but not good for dieters because bananas are full of natural sugars.

I had 2 overripe bananas sitting on my counter, ready to go bad.  I didn't feel like a smoothie (I bought them for that purpose, but it's too cold).  I don't like eating overripe bananas raw.  I hate throwing them away.

So, I googled for quick banana recipes.  I found a few, but this warm pudding sounded just right for a cold night.  I modified the super easy "sexy banana" recipe I found on Modern Paleo Warfare (original) to make it dairy free.  It's not low calorie or low carb.  Bananas are calorie and carb dense.  Every banana has 27 grams of carbs and 118 calories, so it's hard to find a low carb banana recipe.  Bananas are one of the few fruits people trying to lose weight should avoid.

Moist and kind of bread like, similar to spotted dick.

Since I'm just trying to eat whole, healthier foods, bananas are fine with me.

Steamed Banana Pudding  

(makes 2 servings)

1 egg

2 large bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup of almond flour

3/4 cups of coconut milk

cinnamon to taste

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a blender.
2. Pour the mixture (it will be runny) into greased ramekins. It doesn't rise much so you can fill them almost to the top.
3. Bake at 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
4. Turn out of pan like you would an upside down cake.  You can top with whipped cream.  There actually is a dairy free whipped cream that's only 1 carb per serving, but a serving is much smaller than pictured in the photos.

I think next time, I might throw in a handful of chocolate chips.  That would be divine.  

Fresh out of the oven.

Nutrition Facts for Steamed Banana Pudding

---

Amount Per Serving (makes 1)

Calories:  485

Total fat: 31.2 g

Protein: 15.4 g

Total carbohydrate:  40 g

• Dietary Fiber: 9 g
• Sugar: 19 g

Build Me Up Buttercup, Squash Broke My Heart

That's a weird looking pumpkin.

To try to be a little bit healthy, I've decided to sample all the winter squash I can find this year.  Someone told me they all taste the same.  Doubtful.  The local grocery is full of them this time of the year, and they come in all shapes and sizes.  They had one that weighed almost as much as I do.  I'm not sure what variety it was, but it was larger than most jack-o-lantern pumpkins and bright green.  Since they were charging by the pound, and it was more squash then I'll probably eat my lifetime, I passed.

I did buy a few other varieties.  One was buttercup squash. Most squash are low fat and good sources of vitamin C.  Buttercup has vitamin E and some B vitamins too.  It's a low calorie, filling food.  The downside is that each cup has 14 grams of carbs.  It's a bit sweeter than other winter squashes.  Most of the recipes I've found for it call for dousing it with even more sugar.  That's one way to make a healthy food bad.

Buttercup squash should be firm, heavy for their size and have an even cream color.  The ones at my store were quite large, probably about twice the size of an acorn squash.  They look green, squatty pumpkins. 

Buttercup squash taste similar to acorn squash, but are a bit earthier and creamier.

Seriously.  All this work for that?!

I have to be honest.  My experience with this squash was not that great.  I found buttercup squash to be almost impossible to cut into and peel, or at least not worth the effort.  Acorn squash is hard to cut too, but once you cook it, you can easly remove the flesh.  I found this one was even difficult after it was cooked.  I spent a few minutes cursing the squash, but finally got some flesh out.   After all that trouble, there wasn't much flesh.

Maybe I'm a lazy cook.  I preferred the creaminess of buttercup squash to acorn squash, but I think I'll stick to butternut.  It's creamy too, but has more flesh and less problems.

Simply prepared

I roasted it simply with some butter and a bit of cinnamon.  I left the sugar out.  It was good, but not really worth all that effort.  I did have some leftovers.  I think I'll make them into a soup and see what that tastes like.  The creamy nature of this squash should lend itself to soups really well.


With just the butter and cinnamon, 1 cup of buttercup squash has 116 calories, 3 grams of fat, 22 grams of carbs and 4 grams of sugar and 7 grams of fiber.

Broken Glass and Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

Bloody glass cupcakes

One of my guilty pleasures is Martha Stewart's living.  I don't think I've ever done one of her arts and crafts or even made a recipe straight out of there, but I love to look at it anyway.  Her Halloween edition has always been one of my faves.  This year, I saw her broken glass cupcakes and had to emulate it.

Similar to Martha's

I can't find them on her website.  Her website is notoriously hard to navigate.  The article in the magazine (the Halloween edition with "Mothra" on the cover) just had a photo of the cupcakes, and not even a how-to.  I went to the website to find out how she made her sugar glass, but no such luck.  I swear, you can search for the exact recipe title on her website and not find something.  She is pimping a new book on holiday crafts and baking, so maybe it's in there.  Who knows.  This is why I rarely visit the website or make anything she has in her books.  I did a Google image search for Martha Stewart broken glass cupcakes, and the ones pictured to the right look the most like them.  The shards of glass were clear and the "blood" was coming out of the cupcakes.  They're ok, but they don't look gruesome enough for me.

Sugar glass is easy to make, and lots of fun (but it can be dangerous), so I went to town.  Sugar glass is basically just a hard candy, spread out.  Since it's supposed to look jagged and broken for this, it's super easy. I have a low-cal version of a cupcake recipe too, but we'll do to the sugar glass first.   You can make sugar glass just as many ways as you can make sugar candy, so no recipe is incorrect.

Sugar Glass 
3 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup clear corn syrup
Red food coloring

You can tell my sugar wasn't heated smoothly,
but dirty glass works for this.

1. Before you start, get everything together.  Sugar glass comes together pretty quickly and once you start pouring, it's over in a second.  If you're making broken glass, get a baking sheet ready (either spray it with some cooking spray or rub it down with some oil or butter).  If you're going to do something more elaborate like a mold or form, get the materials you need ready.  For my prep, I also got the food coloring and a paint brush.  You'll need to spray a spatula and some spoons with some cooking spray too, to help you smooth out the glass.
2. Combine all the ingredients except food coloring (unless you want solid red glass) in a sauce pan and cook on medium heat until the mixture reaches 300 degrees on a candy thermometer.  If you heat the liquid too fast, the sugar won't be as clear but it's not that big of a deal in this prep.
3. Poor the liquid on the prepared surface and quickly spread out. This is the dangerous part.  Remember this sugar is 300 degrees! Don't touch it.  Use your tools to spread it out, but work quickly.
4. While the sugar is still a little wet, splash or paint the red coloring on to resemble blood drops. You should have the "glass" spread out and painted within a few minutes.
5. Let cool.
6. Crack into shards (this is the fun part).
7. Decorate as you wish.

Easy Vegan Cupcakes
Let's talk about doctoring up a cake mix.  For these, I used a whole can of pumpkin in a chocolate cake mix instead of the oil, water and eggs. So, you just take the dry cake mix, mix in the pumpkin and bake.  People love it, and it's an easy way to make a cake mix vegan.  Just make sure your cake mix is vegan.  Most are. Store bought icings are mostly vegan too, but read the label.  Let's be honest, these mixes and icings aren't animal or vegetable foodstuffs.  They're mostly fakey fakey processed ingredients and oils. But enjoying them every now and again won't kill you, just don't eat the whole dozen yourself.  

I think I stole the pumpkin idea from Hungry Girl (I saw it on a talk show), but it tastes better to me than a regular cake mix anyway.  It only works well with chocolate cake mixes.  You can barely taste the pumpkin in a chocolate cake mix.  Pumpkin and chocolate go well together anyway.  If you use pumpkin in a white cake mix, you'll have pumpkin cake.  It's good too, but people can tell it's pumpkin.  In chocolate, I normally get, "This tastes like something, but what is it?" 

According to Hungry Girl one cupcake made this way has 181 calories, 3.5g fat, 37g carbs (eep), 2g fiber and 2g protein.  I just think they taste better that way (they seem to be richer).  

You can make a homemade cake and icing and decorate it too, but I'm going to be honest again here.  If I'm going to make a cupcake for kids or people who I know will care more about the decoration and icing than the cake, I'm not going to go to all the effort of making the cake taste like the best cake ever.  It's like the time I slaved over a stove for hours making homemade pasta sauce one week, got rave reviews.  A few weeks later, I didn't have time so I brought in Prego ... also got the rave reviews.  Seriously, most people don't care, and if the cake is a box cake, I'm less likely to eat it all.

I'll have some healthy food next week, and maybe some unhealthy ones too. I'm thinking about making more Halloween treats.  I have several Halloween events to go to, and sometimes I like to bring snacks.  We'll see.