On the Menu This Week

Greek Style Cheeseburgers
Vegetarian Black Bean Chili
Roasted Cornish Hens with Quinoa and Broccoli

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Kitchen tools that I can’t live without for low calorie cooking

There are many tools that any cook can’t live without, ever try cutting a ton of vegetables without a sharp knife? But for low calorie cooking I have specific tools that I look to.

I love having steamer baskets for veggies, you can always add some fat later if you want it.

My misto sprayer!!!! With this handy tool you add your favourite oil pump it up and voila fine spray to coat pans or foods. I prefer this to traditional cooking sprays for a couple of reasons. First no propellants or other garbage no body needs, second I can fill it with my favourite oil and know it is fresh. I use this both to coat pans and also to spray some olive oil on foods that I am oven “frying” it adds so much crunch. I am actually up to 2 one for canola oil or regular olive oil for cooking and one for extra virgin olive oil as a finisher for oven “fried” foods.

Immersion blender, great for soups, smoothies etc especially smoothies for one right in the glass.

Stainless Steel Cookware, mostly non stick and provides a much better sear to meat than non stick pans. New favourite is the Scanpan which is a ceramic titanium pan and even though it is nonstick it does not have the issues of non stick pans in terms of the surface coming off.

Grill pans are great for indoor grilling and the fat falls into the wells and away from the food and now that I have a new non warped one I love it even more!

Adjustable” measuring spoons. These are tubes with a plunger, you set it to the amount you want and fill it. I love it for things like butter, peanut butter and honey which are sticky and not easy to measure in traditional spoons.

And of course, measuring cups and spoons and my food scale.

No comments:

Post a Comment

My Plan

I did WeightWatchers once before in 2004-2005. I lost 50 pounds. I gained some back going through my divorce but the good news is I kept off 20 of them until I restarted WeightWatchers in January 2009.

For the first time, I have found a plan that was easy to stick to. Something just felt right this time. Before embarking on WeightWatchers I re-read some books I had found helpful in the middle of my last journey. The books are listed under "Weight Loss" Books on the side bar, and a blog post about them will follow soon. These books helped get me mentally prepared to lose weight and they are the reason I think I am finding losing to be less of a struggle. I am not letting myself get discouraged by small gains and I am seeing far more consistent results.

WeightWatchers gives you a points target based on weight and basic daily activity level. Every food has a points value based on calories, fiber and fat. Then its like a checkbook you start with your daily balance, subtract for foods eaten and add for activity done which can earn you points. Exercise=More Food. Each food point is roughly 50 calories and each activity point is worth roughly 100, I use a heart-rate monitor to calculate my activity points earned.

You also get 35 weekly points to use as you want anytime during the week. For me the most successful both mentally and on the scale is to use most of those points on Saturday night for a splurge and to then stick to my daily points fairly closely the rest of the week. It helps me to know my favourite foods are only a week away if I want them. People can manage the plan however they want but for me this is the most successful. When I'm working out a lot I try to eat some of those activity points as well. Ironically I get much smaller losses the weeks I don't eat those points on Saturday, maybe it shakes up my metabolism, who knows I just know it works

Finally my last key to my plan is attending meetings. It helps keep me accountable and on track.

Weight Loss Slideshow