Currently browsing all entries in the Veggie Eats by Tacita category

Zucchini "Marinata"

Sorry all for the extended hiatus. It has been a hectic time for me and there are still things that need to be fixed. Just to name a couple, my doggie has been pretty unwell and my mother had a second amnesia attack while on vacation. I see a lot of doctors in the near future.

To get some energy and mental power back, I thought about this recipe. It's light, it's tasty and it includes one superfood: flax!

Ingredients (for each serving)

• two thin skin zucchini (if you have an orchard, best if freshly picked)


• one lemon


• one tablespoon pine nuts


• one tablespoon flax seeds

Preparation

• With a potato peeler, slice the zucchini lengthwise.


• Salt the slices and put them in a deep bowl.


• Squeeze the lemon and pour the juice over the sliced zucchini. This is the very simple marinate: the acid juices of the lemon, "cooks" the zucchini, making it palatable even when uncooked.


• Let sit for half an hour, then place the slices on a wide plate, pouring the lemon on top of them.

Now it's time to add some sparkle to this recipe.

To roast the nuts, put the pine nuts in a non stick pan and turn the heat on medium. Constantly monitored them, they burn really quickly.

Once the pine nuts are roasted, put them though a grinder with the flax seeds. Sprinkle everything on the zucchini.

It is very important to finely grind the flax seeds. If you eat the seeds whole, your system flushes them without getting the benefits of Omega 3 & Omega 6. Two tablespoons of flax seeds provides all your Omega 3 needs for the day.

Finally, you can "treat: yourself by adding some grated parmesan.

Two raw zucchini slices takes up quite a bit of stomach real estate. Just what you want to happen when dieting. By adding nuts and seeds to this recipe, it makes the dish rich while remaining very light!

Enjoy!

Nutritional Info
Calories: 177
Carbs: 21 grams
Fat: 10 grams
Protein= .6 grams
P.S. This recipe also covers 59% of your Vitamin C daily needs!

When Tacita isn't filling her tummy with slices of raw zucchini, she's blogging.

Light Hummus on the go

I used to have problems at lunch times. The only option for a vegan like me seemed fatty snacking. Even delis preparing vegan sandwiches didn't take into account I wanted a light, fat free lunch.

Well, I started making this light hummus and I was hooked.

The options to make it taste different each time are countless and the end results are pleasing. Don't be discouraged by the apparent messiness of this lunch when compared to a sandwich. It's practical to carry and it is won't disappoint: two small Tupperware dishes and a spoon is all it takes.

This has become my staple lunch: less than 300 calories and I am good to go!

Ingredients

• 1 (240 grams) of canned chick peas: make sure to read labels well. Most chick peas are about 80-95 calories per 100 grams but there are a number of varieties which are only 64-66 calories per 100 grams. These are my chick peas of choice.


• 3 big carrots (or any other raw veggie for dipping in the hummus)


• Your choice of:
  
  
  
  • one tablespoon of strong mustard
  
  
  • one tablespoon of capers + one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
  
  
  • half a lemon juiced + salt + parsley
  
  
  • one teaspoon of hot sauce + one teaspoon of tomato paste
  
  
  • some cumin and curry powder
  
  
  • Or anything else fancying your mood. It is pretty amazing how a little flavoring changes the taste
  
  

Preparation

• With a potato peeler, skin the carrots. Cut them to have long thing slices, rigid enough to enter in your dip without breaking though, as much as you can lengthwise.


• Rinse the chick peas from the cooking liquid and put in a blender with your flavoring of choice.


• Cover with water: be a little short on the water at first. You can still add it later if needed, but you do not want to put too much right away or your hummus may be too runny.


• Blend well until the chick peas are totally mashed and blended with the other ingredients.


• Dip in your carrot slices and bite! I cannot tell you how tasty this spread can be with the right ingredients!

Nutritional values are excellent and the amount of food satisfying for a light lunch at work. Technically, this is not hummus, since tahini, an excellent but fatty sesame seed butter is missing. It would be more accurate to call this a Chick Peas Spread. Either way, it is really tasty and satisfying, leaving room for that little piece of chocolate you would love to indulge in at mid afternoon! [Renee's note, Tax, you know me so well ]

Nutritional Info (calculated with honey mustard)
Calories: 285
Carbs: 45 grams
Fat: 4 grams
Protein: 13 grams

When Tacita isn't spreading her chick peas, she's blogging.

Veggie Skewers

Summer barbeques are great but can be a bit heavy on the fat. With a little planning, you can stuff yourself with healthy veggies and avoid overindulging in meat and fatty condiments!

These veggie skewers are great for the grill and deliciously light in calories! Let's start sticking!

Ingredients (yields about 8 skewers)

• 1 medium carrot


• 1medium zucchini


• 1/3 of a small eggplant


• 1 small onion


• 5 cloves of garlic


• 1/2 pepper


• 100 grams of firm tofu (alternatively some feta cheese)

The secret to good results is the pre-cooking of the veggies and marinade. Veggies are tough to grill, so you'll need to briefly cook them in salted boiling water. This softens them just enough to allow for successful grilling. [Renee's note: wow, I did not know that, will pass that tidbit along to my aunt ]

Preparation

• Wash all veggies


• Cut carrot into roundlets, about 1/2 inch thick


• Cut zucchini pieces a big bigger


• Cut eggplant pieces even bigger than the zucchini


• Peel garlic cloves and onion


• Cut onion in half


• Add half a glass of vinegar and salt to water. Put to boil.


• Put all veggies in the pot of salted boiling water


• Let the veggies cook about 5 minutes, even if not totally cooked.


• Finally put them on the skewers. Get creative and remember to add your tofu or feta.

At this point all that's left is to do is marinate. These are my 4 favourite light marinades, all are simple to make and quite flavourful!

Hot Marinade

• one cup of tomato sauce


• one tablespoon tomato paste


• hot pepper sauce to taste

Mustard Marinade

• one tablespoon mustard (preferably balsamic mustard)


• half a cup of balsamic vinegar


• half a cup of water

Lemon Parsley Marinade

• the juice of enough lemons to cover your veggies


• a bunch of fresh parsley


• salt


• garlic

For best results, blend parsley, lemon and salt in a food processor. If you like a stronger garlic flavour, blend the cloves too. Otherwise slice the cloves and remove before grilling.

Balsamic Marinade

• 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar


• 1/4 cup water


• a bunch of fresh basil


• garlic to taste


• salt

Like above, blend the basil with water and vinegar to get the flavour. I like blending garlic with this one.

Nutritional Info (for all the skewers + tofu, not including marinade)
Calories: 300
Carbs: 42 grams
Fat: 9 grams
Protein: 20 grams

Not bad, uh?

With these values, you can eat all the veggie skewers you made. Dive into the veggies and you are sure to stay lighter on the fat side!

When Tacita isn't sticking veggies with sharp objects, she's blogging.

No Fat Zucchini Lasagna

Think about this word, lasagna…

What does it inspire to you think about?

Warm feelings of fat, creamy, oily, delicious food...

Would you like some?

Oh yes, bring it on!

Do you know how fattening lasagna can be? Well, we all know the answer to that. This is the major reason lasagna is off-limits when dieting. Here come the cries and sobs and tears, "But I still want some," you softly whimper.

Listen my child: this is not real lasagna, but it's close enough to the original. Best of all you can eat as much as you want while getting loads of veggies. [editor's note: Veggies? Did someone say loads of veggies? Yummers! - Renee]

Give this recipe a try and let me know how you like it:

Ingredients (yields 4 generous servings)

• Zucchini, 600 grams


• Tomato Sauce, 2 cup


• Carrots, raw, 1 medium


• Onions, raw, 1 medium (2-1/2" dia)


• Sun dried tomatoes, 5 pieces


• Spices

Your choice of:

• 1/2 cup Ground TVP*


• 150 grams crumbled firm tofu


• 150 grams minced meat


• if you want to skip on the proteins and keep this recipe even lighter try one yellow pepper cut in cubes

Toppings:

• 4 tablespoons nutritional yeast**


• low fat parmesan cheese, it's veggie equivalent or any other melt able cheese

*TVP = Textured Vegetable Protein - a soy products super rich in proteins, 50 grams every 100 grams of product. You can buy this at your health food store.
** Also found at your local health food store. Nutritional yeasts are excellent for crusts and are loaded with vitamins.

Preparation

1. With a potato peeler slice the zucchini lengthwise into long strips.


2. Using a food processor, cut up the carrots, onions and sun dried tomatoes.


3. If using the TVP, boil one full cup of water, adding in any spices you like and hydrate the dry TVP in it.


4. Mix the hydrated TVP/the tofu/the meat/the pepper with the chopped veggies with the tomato sauce and any spices you like. For extra flavour I suggest adding powdered bouillon.


5. Cover with the zucchini strips the bottom of a square or rectangular pan: the zucchini, if cut thinly, should cover the pan with two layers or else the lasagna will not cut up well.


6. Place some of the sauce on the zucchini and then add another two layers of zucchini before placing on another layer of the sauce. Continue until you have finished both the zucchini and the sauce. Top layer should be the sauce.


7. On the top sprinkle some nutritional yeast or cheese.


8. You can either bake or microwave this lasagna. Microwave at 750 W for 13 minutes or bake a 220 degrees Celsius for about 30 mins. As with most appliances, your oven times may vary.


9. Eat warm!

Nutritional Info - the following values are for the TVP and nutritional yeast version (I am vegan in the end, no?)
Calories: 158
Carbs: 27.4 grams
Fat: 0.9 grams
Protein: 13.8 grams

Pretty damn good, right?

I can easily eat two portions (portions are pretty big!) for dinner and only net +/- 300 calories. You can actually eat the entire pan of lasagna, though we here at fatfighterblogs.com strongly advise against that, for a super stuffing dinner and only consume 600 calories with nearly 60 grams of protein! It's like a protein shake with better looks and taste.

If you are just not that into zucchini, substitute it with thinly sliced eggplant. Or mix the two. Either way, this mock lasagna is great taste.

One final variation, add flax meal to the tomato and veggie sauce. You'll get a load of great nutrients without altering the flavour.

Enjoy!

When Tacita isn't whipping up delish veggie eats, she's gets busy blogging.

No Fat Summer Dessert: Banana Cream!

Are you hot and sweaty, running on that treadmill?

Does the AC seems never to be enough?

Is the only thing you crave is a creamy, relaxing, delicious ice cream?

Yeah, me too!

But, and there is a but in this story especially if you do not want your butt to get bigger, don't indulge in that rocky road delight looking temptaciously at you from the ice cream window….

Does that mean no ice cream this summer?

Hell no!

I promise this Summer Banana Cream will do it for you. With no added fat, it's low calorie and high in fiber! You can do a number of variations to suit your tastes, all will be delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 banana per serving


• 1/5 cup of soy milk (regular milk will do too)


• Your choice of either flavor:
  
  
  
  • 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
  
  
  • 1 teaspoon rhum
  
  
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  
  
  • 1 teaspoon of instant coffee with a dash of low cal sweetener (otherwise the instant coffee gives the cream a bitter taste)
  
  
  • Frozen strawberries or blueberries
  
  

Preparation

1. Cut the banana into 4 long strips


2. Dice them into small pieces.


3. Spread them evenly on a piece of aluminum foil.


4. Freeze.


5. When they are well frozen, put into a food processor with the milk and your "flavor" of choice.


6. Mix until you have a smooth icy cream and all the pieces of banana have melted in it.


7. Eat & Enjoy!

Now, why is this a good idea? Aren’t bananas high in calories and sugars? True, bananas are not the least sugary fruit out there, but they have loads of fiber and potassium. The calories in this recipe remain limited, while satisfying your craving for ice cream and sweets!

One medium banana has about 100 calories. The total recipe is no more than 130 calories for nearly 150 grams of banana cream. A regular ice cream treat runs more for 270 calories for each 100 grams, making it twice as caloric, not to mention higher in fat.

This is probably why this recipe was suggested by Dr. Furhman, author of Eat To Live, a best selling dieting book. He designed this as a basic recipe and my super sweet tooth worked out all the possible modifications I suggested.

Alternatively, if you were craving for a more fruity flavour, you can follow the same procedure using diced and frozen cantaloupe (in that case I strongly suggest you do not use anything else but soy milk and frozen berries). The end result is an even lighter treat: a fruity sherbet!

Nutritional Info (for the chocolate variation)
Calories: 130
Carbs: 31 grams
Fat: 2 grams
Protein: 4 grams

Indulge without the guilt feeling!

Visit Tacita's site.

Orange-Green Summer Salad

Get in two veggie servings and two colours of veggies with this pretty salad, prefect to bring along for a picnic or to a barbeque!

The salad is made of just two type of vegetables: zucchini and carrots, two veggies in season now which you can quickly cook or serve raw, and a light but creamy dressing. Perfect for these summer days!

This is what you will need to make it!

Ingredients

• two medium carrots


• two medium zucchini


• low fat yellow mustardM


• one tablespoon tomato paste


• the juice of one lemon

Preparation

Preparation

1. With a potato peeler, peel the carrots. Wash the zucchini.


2. Also using the potato peeler, slice thinly both veggies lengthwise: this step will give you thin, bendable veggie slices, which also look pretty and fancy!


3. At this point you can decide to cook the veggie OR to serve them raw. Many people like the taste of raw zucchini, but I am not one of them so I decided to go ahead and cook both. The best method is to steam them quickly, about 5 minutes. But alternatively you can dip them in boiling water for 3 minutes or until tender.


4. Drain well or the salad will become pretty soggy.


5. Prepare the dressing mixing one tablespoon of yellow mustard with the same amount of tomato paste. Add lemon juice to make the dressing more liquid. You will not really need any salt, which is great, since we all know how bad salt is for dieting!


6. Add the dressing only at the moment of eating the salad, mixing well in the veggies.

Wherever you are, enjoy this light and filling dish! It is god with sautéed white fish like cod, for a nice and light lunch.

The nutritional values are pretty

No Fat Cauliflower Stew

I used to hate cauliflowers! Cooked, they are smelly... and I thought I hate the taste! Thanks to a Chinese roommate who cooked them with garlic, now it is one of my favourite veggies!

There are two ways you can go about this recipe:

- one pan "I am not into washing the dishes" VS. more equipment "I am on diet! I am rather eat the ebst fod possible and not spare on the cleaning"
- no fat "I am dieting, darling!" VS. low fat "I need a small greese confort at least once a day!"

Either way, these are the ingredients:
-cauliflower: about 15 flowerets
-tomato sauce (with no added seasoning or fat): one cup
-one medium onion
-olives: about 20 in a mix of green and black, pitted
-capers: about one tablespoon drained

Wash the cauliflower (let's start with the obvious, shall we?).

If you want to obtain the most visually pleasing result (picky!), and use extra equipment you will need to clean after, steam (or boil) the cauliflowers until cooked but not totally tender: make sure you can stick a fork into the caulifower without it breaking into pieces. In the meanwhile, cut the onion in slices and put them in a deep pan, either just with water (the no fat option) or with a table spoon of olive oil (the low fat option) first and then, when the onions have taken some colour. a third of a cup of water.

If you go the one pan option(lazy!), put the flowerets into a deep pan and cover with water. When the cauliflowers are almost tender, add the sliced onion in the pan and cook until both vegetables are cooked and the water has almost totally evaporated. This way the flowerets have more chances of crumbling: the taste will not change but the end result will be less aesthetically pleasing. But hey! In the end you will only have one pan to clean!

At this point, add to the vegetable mixture, which should still have some water in, the tomato sauce (or crushed tomatoes), salt and pepper and the sliced olives and capers.

Finally, let cool a bit and eat, while still hot but not steaming! Enjoy!!!

The sweet taste of the onion cooked in water matches welll with the caulifower and with this dish you can stuff yourself up withtou guitly feelings!
Personally, I don't like to add much more spices to the mixture since the olives and capers are already providing with the necessary flavouring for the bland cauliflower and the rather sweet onion, but you can add some hot pepper if you like.

Also, adding a bit more water to the tomato sauce, you can cook in the sauce some fish (like cod or seafood) or lean meatball, for a complete, stuffing meal: indeed this recipe was copied by my mother's original recipe for squids!

The nutrional values (for the no fat version) are as follows: calories=280 , carbs=45 , fat=11 (they all come from the olives: reduce their number for a leaner dish), protein= 11.

No Fat Stuffed Zucchini

Ingredients:
-2 medium size zucchini
-1 small red onion
-3 oz canned beans
-3 oz tomato sauce
-your favourite spices

Preparation:
Cut the zucchini in halves lengthwise. Using a melon baller, a teaspoon or a knife, carve the zucchini making thin zucchini boats. Put what you have carved out into a food processor and the boats on a nonstick food placque and start cooking them (microwave or oven: both work pretty good).

Put the onion, the beans, the spices and the tomato sauce in the blender as well. Pure everything. When the zucchini boats start to be tender, put the mix in and cook for another 15 minutes, until everything is well roasted.Take out and enjoy!

This is a light and quick recipe that makes it easier to enjoy vegetables. You can modify the stuffing as much as you like, adding carrots, celery, garlic or what you like.

Alternatively, you can also use red or yellow peppers and even eggplants to do a similar, as tasty dish. I hope you like it!