Good Diet Meals

What is a good diet meal?   For starters, it's a meal that doesn't leave you hungry when you get up from the table.  It doesn't break the bank, e.g. caviar on a baked potato.  It doesn't take all day to shop for and cook.  The ingredients will all come from your local suburban supermarket. It will be pleasing to the eye, because we eat first with our eyes.  This means some color pops out:  maybe the green of chopped parsley or cilantro or some sweet red pepper.  And, of course, it has to taste like something.  The problem with low fat diets is that low fat food has no mouth feel, and the "gum" the manufacturer puts in to replace it just doesn't do the trick.  The flavors become a bit "off."  The taste is somewhere beyond bland.  You can't put your finger on it, but it just doesn't taste very good.  No wonder you don't want seconds, but wait!  At  10:00 p.m., you'll be raiding the fridge or the pantry for something that DOES taste good.


This week, my significant other and I have both lost a few pounds.  Here's what we ate:
Sautëed Scallops with Cherry Tomatoes, Green Onions and Parsley.  Yum!  Great color, great taste!  You could eat this without being on a diet.
Oven-Crisped chicken with honey-mustard sauce.  Another winner.   The crust was made from panko and shredded Parmesan, and the honey mustard sauce from low-fat Greek yogurt, mustard and honey.  We ate this two nights, and it was so filling we didn't eat the whole breast half.  Another winner! 
Great Salad that I took to a buffet:  Cucumber ribbons with tomatoes and ricotta salata!  Great taste, color and truly delicious.  Very little left over.  Yowza!
Tuna and  Bean Salad.  I believe this is a  South Beach Diet recipe.  Many of the recipes in this diet are really extraordinary.  I substituted cilantro for the watercress, which the store didn't have.  I also used oil-packed tuna instead of water-packed and drained it extra well.  The chopped roasted red pepper was home grilled under the broiler with two of its brethern.    We ate this two nights as well.
I've been making salads of baby romaine, white asparagus, grilled yellow and orange peppers, marinated mushrooms, olives, and a bit of ricotta salata (leftover from the cucumber salad) on top.  A drizzle of Italian dressing.  We're having blueberries for dessert tonight.  Last night we had low fat fruit-flavored yogurt.  I have a fab recipe for a pudding with low-fat ricotta, orange and lemon rind, orange juice and two eggs.  Low sugar.  It was delicious, in fact almost company worthy.       Tomorrow we're having classic shrimp scampi.  And salad of course.   These meals have been filling (plenty of meat or fish) with lots of other great flavors.  I am trying to reach for a piece of fruit when hunger strikes.  It's a real balancing game,
Even food magazines like Gourmet (the late) and Bon Appetit have diet meals.  For example, this month Bon Appetit has a wonder sounding onion fritatta.   The egg is your good friend, and eat the  yolk, too. 


Onward,


The Cheeseparer, who is trying to pare some poundage, too.