Recipe of The Day: Faux Philly Cheese Steak

Well, looks like my puter wants to cooperate a little. So here is a post for ya.

For this weeks posts, I plan on featuring a few healthy dishes I came up with for JP and I. We are still maintaining a healthy eating diet. I decided today, that I would cook a weeks worth of food for the both of us. It makes it a lot easier for me. I broke everything down into individual servings and froze them. So that way we can just pull something out and heat it up. Easy enough. The kids aren't being subjected to this way of eating...yet! lol

Today we had, what I like to call "Faux Philly Cheese Steak." The easiest thing for us to eat healthy, is to have things that we still like, but with half the calories. I went to Earth Fare last week and picked a few things up. I saw these Smart Strip Steak Styles Strips.



They looked good to me! The picture had me sold! It looked just like meat. These strips have 14 grams of protein and no fat. The whole box is just 2 servings, which only total 160 calories! We didn't even eat the whole box for our sandwhiches either. My apologies for no step by step pictures. I cooked so much food today, that just would have been a lot of work.

So here is my recipe...

Prep Time: 10-15 Minutes
Cook Time: 10-15 Minutes
Serving Size: 2-4 People

Ingredients:
1 Package Lightlife Smart Strips Steak Style Strips Seasoned Veggie Strips
1 Large Green Bell Pepper
1 Large Jalapeno (You can used can or jar varieties)
1 Pepperidge Farm Classic Whole Wheat Hoagie
1 Laughing Cow Garlic Herb Cheese Wedge( or any variety of cheese JP used Cheddar)
1/2 Medium White Onion
1 Serving of Hellmans Olive Oil Mayonnaise (or any other variety)
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon Canola Oil for Cooking

In a large pan on Medium Heat. Add in your oil. Then add in your Jalapeno, Onion and Bell Pepper. Saute until vegetables start getting a little tender. Add in your Smart Strips. Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper. Saute for 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and assemble sandwich!

I must say, this was an excellent dupe for a Philly Cheese Steak. Wow! The texture of these strips is just like meat. JP enjoyed it, as did I. I can't believe how low cal this meal was. I almost felt like I was cheating. LOL


Another "faux meat" product we tried was White Wave's Chicken Style Seitan. Seitan is a fake meat product made from Wheat Gluten. I made this BBQ style. I simply sauteed it in a large pan with some onions until it browned a bit. Then poured some regular BBQ sauce over it and baked it for about 30 minutes. I think the overall taste was good. The texture wasn't quit like a meat texture. I want to say it was like a McRib texture. LOL Remember those? JP wasn't fond of the texture by itself. I ate it with some Quinoa and Veggies. The next day I threw it on a Whole Wheat Hoagie roll with Olive Oil Mayo and it was even better! JP thought it was good on the bread too. So we'll just keep experimenting with this product.

Don't worry friends, we haven't gone totally Vegan. Just trying out new things. Seeing what we like and what we dislike. We are trying to transition to healthier eating. I will still bang out the classics for the kiddos. Tonight I made them stuffed shells. Lucky! But, we'll see how it goes. We'll still have our cheat days, so you know those will be good. Because after all, we are Banginfood. We like food with a bang! Ha! That's all for now. Ciao!

~Feather
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Puter Issues

My computer does not want to act right. So I have not been able to post anything. Hopefully I can get something up in a few days. :(
~Feather

Type rest of the post here
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Kitchen Goody

My Lil Bro is the best! He was cruising around in Japan Town in San Francisco and stumbled upon this!

It's a pan for making Tamagoyaki, Japanese omelet! I'm so excited! I can't wait to try it out.


They even have a picture on there, that shows all of the wonderful egg creations you could make. Not sure what it says. I can't read Japanese.

The pan feels very sturdy. It's non-stick and looks very well made. I'll have to come back with a report after I try it out. :)

~Feather

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Recipe of The Day: Easy Fried Rice

Today I am doing some quick and easy Fried Rice. Anyone can do this! Really! You can! I'm just doing a plain onion and egg fried rice today. I have no meat to throw in there. But you can most certainly add in any type of meat you like. I remember when JP and I first moved in together I made him some Spam Fried rice. He was hooked! lol He used to ask me to make it for him all the time. The kids like my Shrimp version as well. This is also a good way to use up any leftover rice.

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 10-15 minutes
Serving Size: 4-6 Peeps

Ingredients:
A pot of day old rice (or any amount of day old rice you have)
2 stalks green onion
1/4 of a white onion
1 tablespoon soy sauce (less if you don't want it to salty)
1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce (optional)
Pepper
1 tablespoon Sesame Seed Oil
2 eggs




You want to go ahead and get your onions chopped up before you start. So get that out the way.



In a large skillet heat your sesame seed oil on Medium heat. You may also use a Wok or any large pan. Looking at this now I should have used my Wok.

Throw your rice in first. Try and get the rice nice and coated with the sesame seed oil. Let it fry a couple of minutes, and then add in your onions.

Add in your Shoyu(soy sauce). Make sure to get the rice coated and mixed in well. Then add in your Oyster sauce. You should be moving pretty quickly. You don't want your rice to burn. So continue stirring things around.

Then you want to create a little well in the middle of your rice. Like so.



Crack your two eggs right into the well.



Let them set up a bit.



Then mix eggs into rice. Get everything mixed together well. Remove from heat and plate! That's it!



This rice can be made so many ways. You can add in shrimp, ham, pork, Kimchee, and even Spam! It's a great meal by itself or as a side dish. Enjoy!


And here is a picture of my lunch today. Spicy Veggie Noodles. Yum! I posted the recipe the other day, but didn't have a pic.



~Feather
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Recipe of The Day: Shoyu Chicken

In the Islands, Soy Sauce is referred to as "shoyu". So today I bring you Shoyu Chicken. This is insanely simple and delicious.

This dish requires little work. It also only uses 4 ingredients. I love this dish over a nice scoop of hot rice. It's crazy to me how a lot of Asian inspired dishes use minimal ingredients, but boast so much flavor.

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 Hr 30 minutes (I like to let my simmer a while in the juice)
Serving Size: 4-6 People

Ingredients:
4-6 Pieces of Chicken (any kind you like)
1 cup Shoyu (Soy Sauce again any brand you like I use a Korean Brand)
1 cup white sugar (or brown)
4 stalks of Green Onion


You want to get a large pot. Place all of your chicken in the pot. Cover with water. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, bring down to medium high heat and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Or until chicken becomes tender.

Chop your green onion. Once your chicken is tender. Pour out all of the water. I like to leave a tiny bit in the bottom of the pot.
Add in your sugar.


Then add in your shoyu and green onion. Let simmer another 30 minutes uncovered.


After 30 minutes or so. Start to remove chicken from the pot. As you can see, the meat has already started falling off the bone. The meat should be really tender by now. So remove whatever meat is left on the bone. Discard bones. You can shred chicken up a bit with a fork. Place chicken back in pot.


You should have something that looks like this. You could be done with it at this point, but I like to let it simmer another 20-30 minutes on low heat just to soak up all that juice and flavor.


That's it! Pour some of the juice over your chicken. This dish is perfect with rice. You can have it over the rice, or have it on the side. I made some mixed veggies to go with it. You can also add some more green onion as garnish. Go ahead Kau kau (eat)! Enjoy!
~Feather
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Quick Recipe of The Day: Spicy Vegetable Ramen Noodles

Here is yet another one of our Ramen noodle creations. I love Ramen noodles...well because in Hawaii everyone loves Ramen! So here is a quick recipe JP actually created today! I acutally prefer fresh Ramen. But, I have to improvise.

JP and I, are still on our weight loss journey. It's kind of hard for me to come up with healthy things to eat that stay within my calorie range. This is pretty filling and low on cals. It's even lower if you use the House of Foods Shiritaki Tofu Noodles. At 40 calories for a whole entire pack! It would make this meal really low cal. But, I'm fresh out of them...so Ramen will have to do.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Serving Size: 1 or 2
Cook Time: 10 minutes or less

Ingredients:

1 Package Ramen Noodles Beef Flavor (or any flavor you like)
1 Laughing Cow Garlic and Herb Cheese Wedge
1 Cup Frozen Mixed Vegetables (I used an Asparagus mix)
1 tsp of Chili Garlic Sauce (Same people who make Sriracha)

Boil your noodles. During the boiling process you can add in your veggies so they can start cooking. Once noodles become tender. I don't like them to tender. Drain all of the water. Add in your season pack, cheese wedge, and chili sauce. Let cheese melt and mix well. You can add more or less chili sauce. We like it spicy! Once everything is well incorporated your ready to eat! That's it. I'm still cooking regular meals for the kids. So I'll have to post those soon. lol They still eat good.

You can check out these other Ramen entries that we've featured in the past:

Ham Fried Noodle

Ramen Two Different Ways


Cold Somen Noodles (it's not Ramen, but still noodles)

Shrimp Fried Noodle
~Feather
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