This is a recipe for beef chuck steak in a yummy sauce of my own creation. Now, let me just warn you that I haven’t tried this recipe on anyone else yet, so I don’t even have Hubby to vouch for me. But, just trust me. It’s good.

Ingredients

• beef chuck steak (one large or two individual-sized)
• 1 tbsp butter
• dill weed
• garlic powder
• ground red pepper
• marjoram
• ¼ onion, diced
• ½ orange bell pepper, diced
• salt
• thyme

*The Sauce:

• ¼ tsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp steak sauce
• 2 tbsp red wine
• 1 tbsp sour cream
• 2 tbsp warm water

Directions

1. Prepare the sauce in a small bowl by mixing the warm water and cornstarch and then adding the rest of the ingredients. Stir well!

2. Melt the butter in a skillet on medium heat. Add and sauté the onion and bell pepper. (The onion should just begin to turn translucent.)

3. Clear a space in the middle of the vegetables and add the steak. Raise the burner to high and cook the steak very briefly on each side, so it is just barely brown, then reduce to low heat.

4. Season the top of the steak lightly with garlic powder, ground red pepper, marjoram, thyme, and dill weed.

5. Stir the sauce again, then cover the steak with it.

6. Cook 30 seconds, turn steak over, season with salt.

7. Increase heat until the sauce begins to simmer and cook, turning the steak often and stirring the sauce so that it constantly covers the steak. Continue to simmer until the sauce is thick and the meat is cooked to taste. You can serve this as I did, with green beans and toast, or however else you like. Serves 2!

This is a recipe for hamburger stroganoff that my husband and I loved. It wasn’t completely my creation, as I based it initially off of a recipe I was given by my Aunt Monica. However, so many changes were made that it was really a different recipe, deserving of a new name. This recipe can be easily adapted to make more or less, depending on how many you are trying to serve. And, one additional note: For the first time, I wrote down the measurements for my spices as “sprinkles,” because this is something I know I can duplicate. I did not exactly measure them, so I’m going to estimate that a sprinkle is about ¼ teaspoon. However, I would advise using your best judgment in that area.

Ingredients

• noodles (Egg noodles or macaroni)
• 1 lb ground beef, thawed
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 can mushrooms, drained
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 green onions, diced
• ½ orange bell pepper, diced
• thickener*
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 2+ tsp salt, to taste
• 2-4 tsp. sugar
• dash of vinegar
• spices: marjoram, oregano, rosemary, tarragon, and thyme

*For the thickener, you may choose to use about 1 tsp cornstarch stirred into about a half cup of warm water, as I did. Or, you may use about 2 tbsp flour, which I have not tried, but it should have a similar effect.

Directions

1. Sauté the onion and garlic in a small amount of oil or butter very briefly, then add and brown the beef. If you are using non-lean beef, you may wish to drain off most of the fat after browning it.

2. Add thickener and stir in quickly, reduce heat to medium. Add mushrooms and spices – (Half a sprinkle of rosemary. One sprinkle each of oregano and marjoram. Two sprinkles of tarragon. Three to four sprinkles of thyme.) – including vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar.

3. Cook for an additional 5-10 minutes, allowing everything to mix together. Stir occasionally.

4. Add sour cream and simmer until the sauce reaches the desired consistency (it should be fairly thick).

5. Serve over salted noodles for the most flavor. Goes well with peas on the side. Should make 3-4 servings.

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This is a recipe Hubby has experimented with for baked wings and home-made honey BBQ sauce. We used Tyson’s frozen wings for this recipe.

Ingredients

• ½ cup barbeque sauce
• cooking oil
• garlic powder
• ½ cup honey
• 1-2 tbsp hot sauce (Texas Pete is our preference)
• ½ cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp margarine
• pepper
• salt
• wings (2 dozen, thawed)
• ½ tsp worcestershire sauce

Directions

1. Rinse the wings and pat dry. Preheat oven to 375ºF.

2. In a small mixing bowl, combine salt, pepper, and garlic powder mixture. Use about twice as much pepper as salt and half as much garlic as salt (½ tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. pepper, for instance) Pat on a coating of the mixture to each wing.

3. Place the wings on a slightly oiled tray for baking. Bake at 375º for 50 minutes or until wings turn golden brown. You can cut into one to make sure it is cooked all the way through before removing from oven.

4. To prepare the sauce, combine margarine, ketchup, bbq sauce, hot sauce, honey, and worcestershire in a bowl or measuring cup, whisking to mix all ingredients.

5. Pour enough sauce into a skillet or wok to make a thick coat on the bottom, and warm it over medium heat. Add a few wings and sauté for about 2 minutes, until coated with the sauce. Continue adding a few wings at a time until the sauce in the pan is used up, then add more sauce and continue until all of the wings are coated. The remaining sauce may be heated up and poured over the wings, used for dipping, or frozen to use again another time. The sauce also goes well on hamburgers! Arrange the wings however you like on a serving dish and enjoy! Should make 2-4 servings, depending on whether you serve a side dish (fries!) and how hungry everyone is!

I would argue that counting calories is the easiest way to alter your diet. It’s not the only way! It’s not even necessarily the best way, though I’ve not found a better. I’d like to share some information with you, and some tips for how to try out calorie counting if you never have. I’m currently using Calorie Count to help me with my weight loss goals.

Setting Goals

Counting calories, in and of itself, is not going to help you lose weight or eat healthy. If you start counting without a goal, you will see how many calories you’re eating every day, but that won’t do you much good. What you need is a limit, a target, or a goal to shoot for in your daily calorie intake. There are many websites that can provide a calculator to determine this number for you, but you can also choose for yourself, using some trial-and-error. Here are some guidelines:

1. Don’t go too low. Those in the medical field generally agree that no woman – not even the skinniest – should go below 1200 calories per day. The bigger you are and the more active you are, the more calories you need. If you eat too few calories, not only do you risk malnutrition, but you also risk putting your body into starvation mode, meaning that more fat is stored (rather than burned)! For men, I think the number not to go below is 1400 per day.

2. Take off a few hundred calories. If you know that you usually eat 2400 calories every day, try cutting back only a few hundred, to about 1900-2100 per day, and see where that gets you. Try it for a week or two before deciding to lower it any more.

3. There is another way to get a daily calorie deficit. Your body burns calories all day long (metabolism!), and your goal with counting calories is to eat approximately the same number of calories as you burn to maintain your weight or to eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. However, to achieve this weight-loss deficit, rather than eating less, you can also try exercising more. Eating the same amount while adding exercise to your routine will increase how many calories you burn throughout the day as well as increasing your calorie deficit.

Reaching But Not Exceeding

The tricky part of calorie counting comes in trying to reach your target without going over. If you’re limiting yourself to 1400 calories a day, for instance, you will soon see that you have to put some careful planning into play. This is the secret; this is how calorie-counting leads to healthy eating. You simply cannot pig out on unhealthy, high-calorie foods every day or you will starve!

1400 calories…

Let’s see, I could go to McDonalds and have a medium chocolate shake for 580 calories, medium fries for 380 plus of course 50 for ketchup, and a double cheeseburger for 440. Crap. I’ve now had 1450 calories (I went over my daily limit), and I can’t eat anything else today at all.

Sure, this might work out for a day or so, but pretty soon you’re going to be feeling very hungry!!

Tips:

1. Choose one meal a day to be the biggest meal. While nutritionists usually suggest this should be breakfast, most of us find it to be more realistic to say that dinner or supper will be our big meal of the day. When my husband is home, I know that we’ll be eating a full meal for dinner, so I try to “save” several hundred calories for that meal.

2. Eat tiny portions slowly. Eating slowly isn’t just a mental trick to feeling like you’ve eaten more. It actually gives your stomach time to tell your brain that you’re fuller than you thought! It takes a lot of patience, but try it out! Also, drink water to help fill your tummy when it feels like you haven’t had enough. And remember, snack time is only an hour or so away!

3. Find healthy snacks. If you only have one egg and one piece of toast for breakfast, you’ll probably find yourself hungry before lunch time. And this is okay! Many people highly recommend switching from 3 meals a day to 5 or more, and you can do this in part by snacking. If you’re a fruit or veggie person, those both make great munchie foods. You can also try individual yogurt cups, nuts, milk, and low-calorie crackers.

4. Give yourself time to get used to the change. When you’re cutting calories, it’s expected that you’ll feel hungry at first. Make sure this isn’t a sign that you’re starving yourself, first of all, but after that just give yourself some time to adjust. You’ll find your body getting used to it within a week or two, I’d say.

5. Finally, remember not to deprive yourself! Make sure you’re eating enough, and make sure you allow yourself to enjoy some high-calorie foods sometimes. As you know, I’m not one to recommend cutting things out of your diet completely. As long as you’re willing to accept the fact that the milkshake is going to fill you up a lot less than 500 calories of something else, it’s fine to indulge sometimes!

Success

If you decide to track other nutrition information, such as fat and sodium, I say more power to you. But even without that, setting and meeting a calorie goal can help you a lot in learning to make healthier food choices. Success comes not just from losing weight. It comes from becoming more healthy.

Have you ever tried counting calories? What were your goals? Did you reach them? Or do you have a better method you’d like to share?

I don’t keep pineapple and brown sugar in the house, so I was having trouble deciding which recipe to try for Sweet & Sour Chicken the other day. The recipes I found online and in my cook books all seemed to include ingredients I didn’t have on hand! So, of course, I called Mom, and she helped me out with her version of sweet & sour sauce, which I adapted for myself. I thought it turned out quite good, and Hubby said he loved it, so I guess it’s something to keep on hand!

Ingredients

• chicken (I used about eight boneless, skinless thighs)
• rice, steamed, about 1-1½ cups per person before preparing

For the Sauce:

• 1 cube of chicken bouillon
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• garlic, either fresh (2 cloves, minced) or powder (about ½ tsp)
• 1 green bell pepper
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp ketchup
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sugar (again, to taste)
• 1-1½ cups water
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp white vinegar (or more, to taste)
• Optional: small amount of ginger

Directions

1. Start by making the rice. The steaming will take longer than any of the other preparations.

2. Prepare the chicken for cooking (cut off fat, etc) and chop into bite-sized pieces.

3. Begin the sauce by sautéing the onion in oil. When the onion is just about done, you can add the bell pepper and the garlic, if you are using fresh garlic. For garlic powder, wait until after you add water so that it doesn’t burn. Note: I did not use ginger in my preparation of this recipe, but Mom highly recommends it. She suggests boiling a slice of ginger (not sure how long) and then using the juice from that, rather than the actual ginger, when cooking.

4. To your vegetables, add water and bouillon, stirring until it dissolves. Lower the heat if it begins to boil, you only need it at a simmer. Add the rest of the ingredients in no particular order and simmer for 10-15 minutes. You will need to do a few taste-tests. If it’s too sweet, you can add some more vinegar, and if too sour, add more sugar. If it tastes more salty than you would like, just remember that the rice and chicken will even it out.

5. Cook the chicken. I simply fried it in its own grease, but I added a dash of soy sauce and black pepper for extra flavor.

6. Serve chicken on a bed of rice, topped with the sauce. I would recommend having a vegetable or two on the side. We had corn with ours, but green beans or peas would go very nicely with it. Should make 4 servings.

I’ve made this soup twice, and I love it. I think it’s now my favorite soup! It’s very easy to make, as well. I love curry, having grown up with it, so if you don’t like Indian food or curry, you may not find this as delicious as I do.

Ingredients

• 2 cubes Beef Bouillon
• 1-2 lbs Beef Tips (I haven’t measured what I use; I just try to fit as much in as I can!)
• 2-3 tsp Curry Powder
• 1 can Diced Tomatoes with juice (or equivalent fresh tomatoes)
• 2 tbsp Flour
• 1 clove Galic, minced, or ¼ tsp Garlic Powder
• ¼-½ tsp Ground Pepper (red or black!)
• 1 Medium Onion, chopped
• Salt, to taste
• Vegetables (Recommended: 2 sliced potatoes, and/or 3 chopped carrots. You may alternatively try peas or another vegetable you enjoy!)
• 1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 2 cups Water

Directions

1. Put flour in a large bag along with your thawed beef tips. Shake to coat the tips with flour.

2. Over medium heat, combine oil and curry powder in saucepan. Allow the oil to heat up, very gently frying the curry. This brings out the flavor, or so I’ve read.

3. Add the onions and beef tips, stirring constantly, allowing them to brown slightly.

4. When beef is slightly browned, add water and bouillon, then your other spices (salt, pepper, garlic). Allow the water to come to a slow boil, then reduce to a simmer.

5. Stirring occasionally, allow soup to simmer about a half hour, then add your remaining vegetables. Make sure the temperature is high enough to maintain a simmer or a very slow boil for another 30-60 minutes. Continue stirring occasionally to make sure it does not stick to the bottom, and the mix the flavors together.

6. Before serving, check the beef to see that it is cooked properly. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed only after the meat is cooked. If too much of the water boils off, you may try simmering with the lid on, or you can simply add more water. I’ve found that the beef usually comes out very tender! This should serve 3-4 people!

Let me preface this recipe with the fact that neither Hubby nor I really like flounder. Of all the fish in the sea, flounder is one we would usually pass by. It’s just not our preference. (Salmon, please?) But we did enjoy this preparation of flounder enough to record it. And if we end up with flounder in the freezer again, we’ll probably eat it this way. So, onward, to the deliciously unhealthy recipe!

Ingredients

• 4 flounder filets
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• ¼-½ cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 tsp. seasoned salt
• a pinch of Savory
• ½-1 tsp. ground red pepper
• ½ cup fine bread crumbs
• 2 tsp. butter or margarine
• 4 strips bacon (secret ingredient!)

Directions

1. I skipped this step, but I would recommend that you do not. Ever so slightly fry the bacon on the stove, not enough to cook through, but just enough to get it started and drain off some of the oil.

2. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Very lightly grease the bottom of your baking dish. I would recommend a metal baking dish rather than a glass casserole dish. Line the bottom of the dish with your strips of bacon. Arrange flounder filets on top as your second layer.

3. Stir salt, spices, and cheese into the sour cream and spread the mixture over the fish so that all surfaces are covered. Top with bread crumbs and dot with the margarine.

4. Bake uncovered for 30 min. Stick a fork underneath and lift up to see that the bacon is finished before serving! Raw bacon = bad. Otherwise, enjoy! We served this with peas and mashed potatoes, and to serve I actually cut sideways through the bacon, making small squares, rather than trying to get a full strip of bacon in each serving. My husband didn’t know the bacon was underneath, and it turned out to be a nice, tasty surprise. Serves 4-6 people. Enjoy!