What’s In The RediSetGo? Part Twelve

Guess what time it is?  Don’t bother looking at your watch, because the answer isn’t there.  The answer is right here:  It’s time to play What’s In The RediSetGo!

If you’re a first-timer, don’t blush, because it’s really easy.  You’ll figure out the rules as you go.  If you wanna play more, then head up to My Favorite Posts at the top of the page, because Parts 1 – 11 are there, waiting to be played!

So strap on your parachute, and your back-up parachute, and your helmut, and climb into the plane, because we’re ready to jump…

Are you ready?

WHAT’S IN THE REDISETGO?

A VEGGIE BURGER, MUSHROOMS, AND RED BELL PEPPER are in the RediSetGo!

I know, I know, I’ve done a veggie burger in the RediSetGo before, but that was a MorningStar Garden Veggie Patty, and this was a Dr. Praeger’s Tex Mex Veggie Burger:

Plus, last time, I didn’t have the bell pepper or mushrooms in there, so it’s definitely not a rerun, thank you very much!

I only discovered Dr. Praeger’s products when I started shopping at Whole Foods, and this is the first box I bought.  I ate one of the four in the package weeks ago (I nuked it in the microwave and didn’t blog about it), and tonight I age the second one.  I like the back of the box, which says that each one is only 110 calories, 5 grams of fat, and 250mg of sodium.  And do you see their slogan at the top of the box, “Where you recognize all the ingredients”?  It’s true.  There’s nothin’ in these besides veggies, beans, oat bran, oil, and various seasonings.  I’ll tell you how it tasted, but before I get to that, hold on to your hats, because something very special is about to happen…

…it’s a BONUS ROUND OF WHAT’S IN THE REDISETGO!

My dinner tonight had two major components, that were both prepared in the RediSetGo.  So.. it’s time to play again!

WHAT ELSE IS IN THE REDISETGO?

HONEY ROSEMARY SWEET POTATOES are in the RediSetGo!

I had a sweet potato that was begging to be eaten (I can’t even remember how long ago I bought it), so I peeled it, cut it into thick steak fries, and lined them up in the RediSetGo.  Then I added a teaspoon or so of fresh rosemary, and drizzled about a teaspoon of honey over them.

All you observant (and long-time) readers will note that when sweet potatoes appeared in What’s In The RediSetGo back in October, they were without honey and rosemary, and with Mrs. Dash.  Yep, I’m careful not to repeat myself exactly!

When you put the two halves of the meal together, you have my dinner:

I wish I had some sort of bread or bun, so I could have made an actual burger, but I’m out.  It’s on the shopping list.  I thought of wrapping the patty in a lettuce leaf, like they do at In-N-Out Burger when you order it Protein-Style, but the lettuce I have right now is a mix of baby greens, so that wouldn’t work.  Instead, I added a handful of lettuce to the plate as a tasty little garnish.

The burger was tasty.  I loved that it was chunky – I could see whole soybeans and black beans, and nice chunks of the other vegetables.  It didn’t hold up well in the RediSetGo, which is too bad, and if I had used a smaller spatula to flip it and lift it out at the end, I’m pretty certain it have fallen apart altogether.  But a burger that falls apart is not the end of the world.  The veggies, were the RediSetGo basically sauteed, were a little bland, but that’s my fault because I didn’t season them at all.  As for the sweet potatoes, they were great – the honey made them a touch soggy (maybe next time I’ll just dip them in a little honey when I eat them), but I loved the sweetness of the honey and the woodiness of the rosemary.  They were great.

Since I’m talkin’ about eating, I thought I’d throw in everything else I’ve eaten today.  Breakfast was two pouches of instant oatmeal, an apple, and some strawberries.  Lunch was this enormous salad:

The components:

• Some aforementioned mixed baby greens
• Cucumber
• Zucchini
• Mushrooms
• Garbanzo Beans (gotta add some protein!)
• About 8-10 tiny fresh sage leaves
• Red Bell Pepper
• Vegetarian Bacon Bits
• A few tablespoons lite asiago parmesan dressing

A mid-afternoon snack was a bunch more strawberries.  And my dessert after dinner was a nonfat peach yogurt (my last one, so that’s something else to add to the list).

Keep it up, David!

What’s In The Crockpot? Part One

Don’t fret.  The very-popular What’s In The RediSetGo? posts aren’t going away, even if it has been a long time since I’ve posted one (see the most recent one, from before Thanksgiving, here).  In the meantime, I was inspired yesterday to dust off the ol’ Crockpot, one of my favorite kitchen vessels, so remove your shoes, belts, and any metal from your pockets, and place all your liquids in a clear one-quart bag, because it’s time to play What’s in the Crockpot?

Are you ready?

What’s in the Crockpot?

Squash and Sweet Potato Soup is in the Crockpot!

Like most crocked foods, it took hours for the soup to look like this, so I’ll start at the beginning, which, in this case, was in November, when I came home from the store with a table queen squash.  Remember this guy?  Probably not.  I forgot all about him until I came home the other night from my travels and saw him there on my counter.  I placed an apple alongside to provide a size comparison:

A table queen is a type of winter squash, like butternut or acorn, and they’re called winter squashes because they’ll last from when they’re harvested in the fall all the way through the winter, which was helpful for people back in the days before refrigeration, when fresh food in the cold winter months was sparse.  Because of this, I had no qualms that this squash, purchased 6 weeks ago, would be perfectly good and delicious.

I found this recipe for Butternut and Sweet Potato Soup on the New York Times website, and decided to adapt it, first by using table queen instead of butternut squash, and second by using a crockpot instead of cooking it on the stove.  Adapting recipes for a crockpot doesn’t involve rocket science – in many cases, you can just throw all the ingredients in the crock and then walk away for, like, half the day or more.

The first step was prepping my ingredients.  I started by peeling the table queen and scooping out the seeds.  Has anyone peeled a squash before?  It’s a pain in the ass.  At least butternuts are smooth – this table queen has valleys all around it, like a pumpkin, and my crappy little vegetable peeler can’t get in there.  I was half done when I took this picture:

I also peeled two sweet potatoes, and 2 regular potatoes, and 1 small knob of fresh ginger (in the bottom right of the picture):

I diced up the veggies, along with 1/2 of a large white onion, and grated the ginger, and it all went in the crockpot:

I skipped the first step of the NY Times recipe, which was sauteing the onion and ginger, and because I skipped it, I omitted from my crockpot the tablespoon of oil the recipe called for.  Leaving out the oil means leaving out the fat!  The recipe also called for 6 cups of stock, but I only added 4, partly because crockpots have a way of pulling much more water out of every ingredient than you thought could ever exist, and partly because I only bought one 4-cup box of low-sodium vegetable stock at the store.

I set the crockpot on high, and walked away for 4 hours.  When I came back, I sampled a few pieces of the veggies, and they were definitely cooked through and tender.  So I pulled out the blender, and began pureeing the soup, in batches:

After I had it all pureed, it went back into the crockpot for about another 1/2 hour, while I ran out to the store to buy croutons, because I really wanted croutons with my soup.  Here’s the finished product (the croutons are Marie Callendar’s fat-free caesar croutons):

The soup is tasty, with a smooth and creamy texture, and it doesn’t taste fat-free, even though it is.  It may be a little on the bland side – perhaps I could have used more ginger (crockpots tend to bleach out spices and things like ginger or garlic, so maybe I should have just added it later in the cooking process).  I ate two bowls nevertheless.

And, there’s lots of leftovers! Now I have 4 Gladware containers of soup – 1 in my fridge for tomorrow or the next day, and 3 in my freezer to eat at a later date.  I love healthy meals that I can just reheat and enjoy!

Keep it up, David!

What’s in the RediSetGo? Part Nine

This is technically my first blog post from my little vacation to Colorado, as I am writing this from the Rocky Mountain state, but the post is about stuff that happened prior to leaving Los Angeles.

That’s because, this morning, I used a piece of kitchen equipment that I love blogging about (and you love reading about, which makes writing about it even more fun) – and so, without further ado, it’s time for another round of everyone’s favorite blog-based game, What’s in the RediSetGo?

The rules are so simple.  There’s something in the RediSetGo, and you have to guess what it is.  That’s it.  There’s no chutes or ladders, no collecting $200 for passing Go, no triple letter squares.  If you’d like to practice before tackling today’s challenge, than click here or here or even here.

Now that you’re all spackled and primed, let’s play!

What’s in the RediSetGo?

A SWEET POTATO FRITTATA is in the RediSetGo!

I had a sweet potato I wanted to consume, but since I already featured sweet potato fries in a prior edition of What’s in the RediSetGo? (you can click here to read about them), I decided to do something different.  Today’s creation is based on the Spanish tortilla that I grew up eating.  A tortilla is kinda known as a poor man’s omelet, as it’s mostly potatoes instead of mostly egg.  The tortilla my grandmother makes has only 4 ingredients (I think):  oil, potatoes, onion, and eggs.  Maybe salt and pepper too.  Actually, to say that today’s RediSetGo creation is based on that tortilla is a big stretch – ‘loosely inspired’ is perhaps a better description.

First I peeled and diced up the sweet potato, slicked the RediSetGo with some Pam, and threw them in, adding dried thyme, rosemary, oregano, and garlic powder:

I love how you can see the steam rising from the RediSetGo in that pic.

After they got all soft and cooked through, I added the eggs.  I would have added onion, too, but I didn’t have any.  I wanted to add three egg whites, but try as I might, I couldn’t prevent one of the yolks from slipping away from me and into the RediSetGo.  Oh well, it’s not the end of the world.  That one yolk probably made it tastier.

The finished product:

You can see I couldn’t really stir the yolk throughout the frittata because some of it had already begun to set.  The RediSetGo moves quickly!  The final product was delicious.  I really wanted a piece of toast to go with it, but I’m out of bread right now.

Since this post is all about food, I thought I’d follow up on a post from last week, where I tried to buy the perfect amount of produce to last me three days.  Since I’m going to be in Colorado through this weekend, I didn’t want to have tons of produce sitting around my house, going bad in my absense.

This is what I bought:

Before heading to the airport, I took a quick photo of what remains – I’d say I did pretty well eating most of that produce!

Let’s go through it, item by item:

• 1 head of celery: 80% EATEN
• 2 Granny Smith apples: 1 EATEN, 1 NOT.
• 1 pound of carrots: 60% EATEN
• 1 bag of red seedless grapes:  25% EATEN
• 2 bananas
• 1 green pepper
• 1 Rome apple
• 1 yam
• 1 zucchini

I washed the grapes and put them in that container, and they’re now in my freezer, where they’ll keep for a nice long time.  The carrots and celery, which I washed and cut down into strips, are being stored in green bags – they’re actually sitting on top of the green bags (and paper towel) in the photo.  I picked up the green bags at the supermarket a few months ago – basically, they’re breathable, allowing ethylene gas, which accelerates the deterioration of fruits and vegetables, to escape, keeping produce fresher for longer.  They’ll be fine by the time I return to California.

But I certainly will need to head to the store within 24 hours of my return!

Keep it up, David!

What’s in the RediSetGo? Part Five

There’s been a two-week delay, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.  So let’s all roll up our pant legs and wade knee-deep in the newest installment of everyone’s favorite internet game, What’s in the RediSetGo? Click here for rules and archives, or just keep reading – I promise you’ll pick up how to play in a snap.  Are you ready to play?

What’s in the RediSetGo?

SWEET POTATO FRIES are in the RediSetGo!

I didn’t actually fry them, so I suppose they’re not sweet potato fries as much as they’re just sweet potato sticks, but that’s enough nitpicking.  I got a sweet potato at the farmers’ market weeks ago, and finally got around to using it.  It wasn’t very big, especially after I peeled it:

Perfect for one serving.  A little Pam went in the RediSetGo, and then the sticks, and about 15 minutes later, they were crispy and cooked through.  I hit them with some Mrs. Dash as soon as they were done, got a little Dijon mustard for dipping, then cut up some raw broccoli, carrots, and 2 radishes.  Voila!  My lunch:

In other news, I had a good workout at the gym today:  about 25 minutes of weightlifting, and then 48 minutes of cardio: 5 on a treadmill until an elliptical opened up, and then the rest on the elliptical.  My headphones were on the fritz, which was annoying.  A few days ago, the left side died, and today, the right side started crackling.  Not good.  I need my headphones during my workouts!

On the way home, I made a split decision to buy new headphones.  A few years ago I saw headphones for sale at the 99 Cent Store, so I stopped there to see if they still stocked them.  They did!  Success!  I also picked up a slightly dented can of garbanzo beans for 60 cents and a bag of lettuce for salads (click here for my prior adventures in 99 Cent Store produce).  Here’s my $2.70 haul (including tax):

Why yes, observant readers, they are Uninex International brand headphones.  Jealous?

I also saw this in the check-out line at the 99 Cent Store:

I’m not sure which is the more disturbing thought:  That the 99 Cent Store places pregnancy tests in the checkout lanes alongside other impulse buys, or that this checkout lane was almost sold out of them.

The two people ahead of me in line bought nothing but candy, and the guy behind me in line bought candy and other Halloween decorations.  How much candy did I buy?  None!

Keep it up, David!