Eat Out Eat Well

A Holiday Gift

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book-cover-free-downloadJust in time for the crunch of the holiday season —

My new book — 30 Ways to Eat Your Holiday Favorites and Still Get Into Your Jeans — is available as a free download for your kindle or kindle reader this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (12/7 – 12/9).

The book is filled with useful and practical tips and info to help you navigate your way through the holiday season with your waistline intact and your belly happy.

Head on over to Amazon to download your free gift — and please share this info with anyone else who might be interested.

I hope you enjoy the book.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon.

Enjoy the holiday season.

Your Holiday Eating Cheat Sheet

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holiday-eating-cheat-sheet

Are you feeling some holiday pressure? Are you, along with lots of family and friends, jumping into entertaining and cooking mode?

Is food a good antidote to all of that stress (at least in the moment)?  What about the pressure – subtle and sometimes not so subtle – to eat everything that’s set out on the table by those close to you?

Then there’s the anger/guilt about eating way too much – and then repeating the whole process.

Consider These Ideas:

  • Don’t feel obliged to eat out of courtesy – especially if you don’t want the food or you’re full –because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.  Get over it – the calories are going into your mouth, not theirs.
  • Give yourself permission to NOT eat something just because it’s tradition. Whose tradition?
  • Only eat it if you want it. Eat what you want not what you think you should.
  • Say no to the friend or relative who is pushing the extra piece of pie. You’re the one stepping on the scale or zipping up your jeans the next day – not them.
  • Have some personal rules and commit to them.  An example might be:  I really want pecan pie for dessert so I’ll have only one biscuit without butter with my meal.
  • Make a deal (with yourself) that you can eat what you want during dinner. Put the food on your plate and enjoy every last morsel. Clean your plate if you want to. But – that’s it. No seconds and no double-decking the plate.
  • Make trades. Trade the biscuit and butter for wine with dinner. Limit the hors d’oeuvres. They really pack in calories. Make eating one or two your rule.
  • Choose your beverages wisely.  Alcohol adds calories (7 calories/gram). Alcohol with mixers adds even more calories. Plus, alcohol takes the edge off lots of things – including your ability to stick to your plan.
  • Drink water. It fills you up. Have a diet soda if you want. If you’re going to drink alcohol, try limiting the amount – think about alternating with water, seltzer, or unsweetened beverages.
  • Control your environment. Don’t hang around the buffet table or stand next to the platter of delicious whatevers. Why are you tempting yourself?
  • Talk to someone. It’s hard to shove food in your mouth when you’re talking.
  • Get rid of leftovers. Leftover stuffing has defeated the best-laid plans.
  • Don’t nibble during clean up (or preparation for that matter). Broken cookies, pieces of piecrust, and the last spoonsful of stuffing haven’t magically lost their calories.
  • Don’t starve yourself the day of a grand meal. If you do in an attempt to save up calories for a splurge, you’ll probably be so hungry by the time dinner is ready you’ll end up shoving food into your mouth faster than you can say turkey.
  • If you end up overeating, add in some longer walks and a couple of days of moderate eating afterward.

Do you want some more really helpful (and sometimes humorous) info about the holidays and holiday eating?  Check these out:

New on Amazon:  30 Ways to Eat Your Holiday Favorites and Still Get Into Your Jeans

Available from the iTunes store:  Eat Out Eat Well magazine

 

12 Ways To Decrease Calories In Your Favorite Holiday Baked Goods – And They’ll Still Taste Great!

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gingerbread-chef-graphic

Does your holiday season mean, among other things, baking lots of cookies:  spritz, rolled, ginger bread men, meringues, powdered sugar cookies; savory and sweet breads; and whatever dessert sounds good (maybe even fruit cake – although not in my family).

If you added up the number of butter and sugar calories in all of these baked delights the total would be so staggering it would absolutely spoil their holiday deliciousness.

To lower the calories in baked goods try decreasing the amount of fat and sugar called for in the recipe.  Decreasing the amount of sugar by a third doesn’t even really affect the taste – sometimes you need to experiment to see how it might affect the texture, too. Shown below are some other substitutions to try.  If you have some other ideas, please head on over to Eat Out Eat Well’s Facebook page to share them.

Some Baking Substitutions To Try

 1.    For brownies, fruit breads, and cake-like cookies, use ¼ cup of applesauce and ¼ cup of vegetable oil or butter instead of a half cup of oil or butter – OR — replace half the butter or oil with unsweetened applesauce, pureed pumpkin, or mashed bananas. For every half-cup of oil you replace with pureed pumpkin, you’ll save more than 900 calories and 100 grams of fat  — and pumpkin keeps baked goods moist.

2.    Use 2 egg whites or ¼ cup egg substitute for one egg; use 3 egg whites and 1 egg yolk for 2 whole eggs.

3.    Decrease the amount of sugar in your recipe by up to a half and add ginger, lemon zest, cinnamon, or cloves for some flavor.  Cinnamon, in particular, adds a sweet and warm taste.

4.    Substitute nonfat sweetened condensed milk for sweetened condensed milk or evaporated skim milk for evaporated milk.

5.    Instead of sour cream use nonfat or reduced fat sour cream, pureed low-fat cottage cheese, or low or nonfat Greek yogurt.

6.    Substitute reduced or nonfat cream cheese for cream cheese.

7.    Substitute non-fat, 1%, or 2% milk for whole milk and half and half for cream.  Or try using buttermilk, which is naturally low in fat.  Traditional buttermilk is the liquid left behind after churning the butter out of cream.

8.    Substitute 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, chopped dried fruit, or chopped nuts for 1 cup of chocolate chips.

9.    Swap 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon of oil or water for one ounce of baking chocolate.

10.   Instead of frosting use sliced fresh fruit with a dusting of powdered sugar, sweetened and flavored (vanilla, peppermint) nonfat cream cheese, or nonfat whipping cream.

11.    For fruit pies, use half the sugar called for in the recipe — this saves 774 calories for every cup of sugar you don’t use.

12.    Substitute part-skim ricotta cheese for cream cheese in cheesecake, which will double the protein and cut the fat by about 60 grams for each cup.

Spoon-in-the-mouth-tip:  “Tastes” aren’t calorie-free. The dough from the bowl has the same number of calories as the baked cookie, cake, or bread -– and the calories add up pretty quickly. Dump the bowls and beaters into the sink as soon as you’re finished with them to help resist temptation (and constant nibbling).

Remember to head on over to Eat Out Eat Well’s Facebook page if you have other baking substitutions or swaps that you’d like to share.

 

Leftover Turkey? How Long Can You Keep It?

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roast-turkey-leftovers

Did you roast an 18 pound turkey?  Maybe you roasted two smaller ones so you could have four drumsticks.  Inevitably, most of us will have a whole lot of leftover turkey.

What do you do with all of that leftover bird? Is it alright to eat it after it’s been sitting out from the time it came out of the oven, through dinner, dessert, and two loads run through the dishwasher?

Once it’s in the fridge, how long can it stay there? Are you certain the leftovers are safe to eat?

Once Your Bird Is Cooked, Does It Matter How Long You Leave It Out?

Yes, yes, yes! According to the Centers for Disease Control the number of reported cases of food borne illness (food poisoning) increases during the holiday season. You shouldn’t leave food out for more than two hours. To save turkey leftovers, remove the stuffing from the cavity, cut the turkey off the bone, and refrigerate or freeze all leftovers.

The Basic Rules For Leftovers

According to the USDA the mantra is: 

2 Hours–2 Inches–4 Days

  • 2 Hours from oven to refrigerator: Refrigerate or freeze your leftovers within 2 hours of cooking. Throw them away if they are out longer than that.
  • 2 Inches thick to cool it quick: Store your food at a shallow depth–about 2 inches–to speed chilling.
  • 4 Days in the refrigerator–otherwise freeze it: Use your leftovers that are stored in the fridge within 4 days. The exceptions are stuffing and gravy. Both should be used within 2 days. Reheat solid leftovers to 165 degrees F and liquid leftovers to a rolling boil. Toss what you don’t finish.

How Long Can Leftover Turkey Stay In The Freezer?

Frozen leftover turkey, stuffing, and gravy should be used within one month.

To successfully freeze leftovers:

  • package them properly using freezer wrap or freezer containers. Use heavy-duty aluminum foil, freezer paper, or freezer bags for best results and don’t leave any air space.
  • Squeeze the excess air from the freezer bags and fill rigid freezer containers to the top with dry food. Without proper packaging, circulating air in the freezer can create freezer burn – those white dried-out patches on the surface of food that make it tough and tasteless.
  • Leave a one-inch headspace in containers with liquid and half an inch in containers filled with semi-solids.

How Many Calories Are In Typical Thanksgiving And Hanukkah Foods?

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turkey in a chair

What was on the menu for the 50 English colonists and 90 Wampanoag American Indian men at the first Thanksgiving dinner on record (the first official Thanksgiving didn’t happen until two centuries later)? Since it was harvest time in October 1621 in the Plimoth (Plymouth) Colony, in what is now Massachusetts, for the celebration:

  • the Wampanoag killed five deer
  • the colonists shot wild fowl — maybe some geese, ducks, or turkeys
  • some form of Indian corn was served and probably some squash, carrots, and peas
  • the feast was likely supplemented with fish, lobster, clams, nuts, wheat flour, and pumpkin.

Calories In Today’s Thanksgiving And Hanukkah Foods

Most extra holiday calories don’t come from the “day of” holiday meal but from unrelenting nibbling over the holiday season – and the nibbling isn’t on the same type of food served at the first Thanksgiving dinner.

Guessing at calories can really fool you — being informed can help you to make good choices, food swaps, and trades. A “know before you go” strategy is a big help for making well thought out choices – which will leave room for some of your favorite holiday treats.

Here’s a sampling of the calories in some traditional Thanksgiving and Hanukkah foods. The calories are for an average serving and are estimates.  Recipes all vary, these are ballpark numbers.

Appetizers:

Mixed nuts, 1oz:  170 calories

Candied pecans, 1oz: 139 calories

Cheese ball, 1oz: 110 calories

Selection of raw vegetables, 8 ounces:  75 calories

Sour cream and onion dip, 2 tablespoons: 60 calories

Deviled egg, ½ of an egg: 59 calories

Stuffed mushrooms, 6 small:  386 calories

Shrimp with cocktail sauce, 3 shrimp:  30 calories

Jell-O mold salad, ½ cup: 103 calories

Pigs in blankets, one homemade: 46 calories

Triscuit, 6 crackers:  120 calories

Main Course:

Turkey, 3.5 ounce serving (about the size and thickness of a new deck of cards):

  • Breast with skin: 194 calories
  • Breast without skin:  161 calories
  • Wing with skin: 238 calories
  • Leg with skin:  213 calories
  • Dark meat with skin:  232 calories
  • Dark meat without skin:  192 calories
  • Skin only:  482 calories; 44g fat

Smithfield ham, center slice, 4 ounces:  180 calories

Prime Rib roast:  8oz:  450 calories

Roasted Brussels sprouts with olive oil, 10 half sprouts:  80 calories

Dinner roll, 1 small: 87

Butter, 1 pat: 36

Cheesy corn bread, 2″ X 2″: 96

Turkey, white meat, 4 ounces: 180

Turkey, dark meat, 4 ounces: 323

Turkey gravy, 1/4 cup: 50

Stuffing, 1/2 cup: 190

Mashed potatoes, 1 cup: 190

Candied Yams, 1/2 cup:  210

Sweet potato casserole, 3/4 cup: 624

Honey glazed carrots, 1/2 cup: 45

Green beans almandine, 1/2 cup: 220

Green bean casserole, 1/2 cup: 75

Peas and pearl onions, 1/2 cup: 40

Jellied Cranberry Sauce, 1/4 cup: 110

Cranberry relish, 1/2 cup: 76

Dessert:


Pumpkin pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 316

Apple pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 411

Pecan pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 503

Vanilla ice cream, 1/2 cup: 145

Chocolate cream pie, 1 large slice: 535

Baked apple, 1 apple: 182

Tea, brewed, 8 ounces: 2

Coffee, black: 10 ounces: 5

Coffee with cream and sugar, 10 ounces: 120

Coffee with Baileys Irish Cream and sugar, 10 ounces: 186

Calories In Typical Hanukkah Foods

Applesauce, sweetened, ½ cup:  95

Applesauce (unsweetened), ½ cup:  50

Fried potato latke, 2oz:  200

Fried, cheese-filled blintz, 1 medium:  340

Baked jelly-filled sufganiyot, 2 inches:  115

Fried jelly-filled sufganiyot, 2 inches:  300

Almond Mandelbrot, ¼ inch slice:  45

Rugelach, 1 cookie:  100