What are all you Weekend Chefs Cooking up today/tomorrow??

Many of us love to create in the kitchen and the weekend is MY time to cook up additional foods to take me into the week.  Today, I'm making a pot of Yellow Lentil and Carrot Soup and I'm marinating Chicken breasts in Trader Joe's Island Soyaki for grilling later on.  I also have plans to make a mushroom and soy burger Stroganoff to serve over Tofu Shirataki Noodles. 

The Lentil Soup is super easy, I just got about a cup and half from the Natural Foods bins at Whole foods that I had in the pantry but you can get them in bags near the pasta section.  They are super cheap too.  So with the lentils, I chopped up 4 large carrots and one half a large yellow onion.  Added some thyme and covered with an inch of water.  It's simmering now.  It will take about an hour.  No Fat!!

If I don't use the mushrooms in the Stroganoff, I was thinking about making a cream of mushroom soup with chicken stock and condensed milk as the base.  a bit of Sherry and scallions for flavor.

What are you cooking up this weekend?

Hi! I'm going to try  a new recipe - lentil shepard's pie that was suggested with a thumb's up from one of my CC friends.  Also planning on some roasted butternut squash with that.  And I'm going to try cooking cardoon - it's something brand new for me and it sounds like kind of a pain, but what the heck, it's the weekend and I have the time today.

 

I'm in my very first week of working on my eating plan. I must admit that I haven't got one clue how to cook for this new way of eating!

I love to cook on the weekends: spaghetti sauce, lasagna, banana bread, etc. And of course, I have my favorite recipes gathered over the years. I feel a bit like a fish out of water this first weekend because I have no idea what to do! Where should I start to gather new favs??

I'm making a minestrone soup to eat during the weekdays... the local health food store has a sale on Saturday/Sunday every week so I will pretty much just add whatever veggies they have on sale today... the beans are soaking already.

 

Egg salad, chicken salad, potato salad and macaroni salad.  It's nice weather outside, we jog in the park every other day, and I'd like to start taking picnic foods so we can eat after we're done.

Chinese  (home made)

Tiger prawns and snow peas with garlic. (170 calories)   Pork chow mein, (177 calories)  pepper and zucchini stir fry (41 calories)

Wow, everyone has GREAT ideas!!

Jewellsss, why don't you try making a good vegetable soup?  If this is your first week / weekend with the new way of eating I think i would be afraid to have all that comfort food you mentioned around the house.  A big old pot of vegetable soup is good to have around, you can chow on that when you get hungry and not do any damage.  Keep reading this thread and I bet you will see some other lowfat, healthy options for cooking come up.

Megan!!!  Hi!!!  I just cooked Cardoons around the holidays!!  They were a bit of a pain in the butt but it was like eating pure artichoke meats without all the stringy leaves!!  I did the saltwater soak overnight, then cut them up into 1 or 2 inch lenghths and sauted them in olive oil, garlic and parsley.  If I made them again, I would just boil them and chop them up and make a "Cardoon Loaf" with breadcrumbs, eggs, parmesan cheese, etc and bake in a loaf pan.  YUMMO!  Where did you get them btw?  I only saw them at PW Market (And you know I won't go in there anymore!!)

CD, are you using fat free mayo in your picnic fare?

Mellow - BEANS!!  I hadn't thought about making beans in a while.  I have a recipe for Navy Bean and Ham soup...

My goodness fransen, I think you win the prize for tastiest sounding weekend food.  I so miss the Chinese Buffets.....

Tonight we're having grilled ostrich burgers!

=^..^= MOLLY

a three bean spinach pasta dish with a tilapia fillet

and tomorrow im whippin up some zucchini bread :)

We don't use mayonnaise.  We use fat free sour cream or cottage cheese and mix in our own seasonings.  Chicken, tuna, and macaroni salad get a variety of vegetables and fruits mixed in.  The sweetness of the fruits go very, very well with the sour cream and cottage cheese.

Last night I made macaroni with my version of alfredo sauce (laughing cow light wedge, cottage cheese, melted together in a skillet with some sauteed garlic), a quorn chicken tender, and lots of peas and roasted peppers.  This morning I made some artichoke hummus, and worked on a blueberry oatmeal breakfast cake recipe that I've been developing.  Today's variant only had 57 calories per cake, but they were really dense and hardly sweet at all.  I'll put some more time into those tomorrow.  Tonight for dinner, I'm going to roast a portobello cap and make a balsamic vinegar sauce with shallots and some three year aged gouda.  I'll serve it with steamed asparagus with lemon and garlic and some wild rice and almond pilaf.  Saturday is my "fancy food" day. Tomorrow I need to make a new batch of seitan and some salsa for lunches during the week.  

i wish someone would cook me that kind of food.. your family or friends, or whoever gets to eat with you guys are sooo lucky..

Original Post by perhaps:

i wish someone would cook me that kind of food.. your family or friends, or whoever gets to eat with you guys are sooo lucky..

I live by myself, so this is all for me.  Just because you're only cooking for one doesn't mean you have to live on frozen dinners!  Just like exercising, I think making nice, healthy food for yourself (even if you don't have a lot of experience cooking) is a good way to remind yourself that you're worth the effort.

Original Post by medveditsa:

Original Post by perhaps:

i wish someone would cook me that kind of food.. your family or friends, or whoever gets to eat with you guys are sooo lucky..

I live by myself, so this is all for me.  Just because you're only cooking for one doesn't mean you have to live on frozen dinners!  Just like exercising, I think making nice, healthy food for yourself (even if you don't have a lot of experience cooking) is a good way to remind yourself that you're worth the effort.

 I live by myself too! I abso love to cook up a storm though.  Sometimes I have friends over for dinner (like once every two or weeks or so).  Last week I had friends over twice, it varies, but normally, I'm just cooking for me and the lunches I'm going to have the first few days of the week.

Medvetitsa, I would be interested in those blueberry cakes when you get done fussing with the recipe!!

CD, you are so SMART!!!  fat free sour cream and cottage cheese sounds like a damn good idea. 

Veggie soup it is!!! There will be a pot simmering on my stove by tomorrow afternoon! Thank you!

Miracle Whip would work just as well, but honestly I don't really like the flavour of mayonnaise.  Which is why we use other things.  We're working on perfecting a ranch dressing version.

This weekend I am making cucumber logs filled with hummus and black olives as the appetizer, salad and fresh fruit kebobs w/ fat free yogurt dip and sliced strawberries as the side, and grilled swordfish steaks with lemon pepper seasoning as the main dish. Tasty huh?

SWORDFISH!!!!  YUMMO!!

me and my boyfriend just got finished making and eating sushi. vegetarian sushi that is. with portabella mushroom, asparagus, cucumber and avocado. soooo full.

I love cooking up batches of stuff to eat through the week but as I'm a student weekends aren't always my freest days so I'm not a 'weekend chef' as such. The other day I made up four portions of tofu, chickpea and sweet potato thai green curry - 250 cals each, ate one and froze 3. They microwaved perfectly in 4 minutes from frozen. Today, I'm making prune and dark chocolate bread-not one bit low cal but I did halve the quantities so I won't be tempted to eat so many cals of it. I'm just waiting for the dough to rise and I'm pretty excited. YUM!

yeah but i live in dorms on campus and we dont have a kitchen..