So many of us think a salad, instead of a sandwich, is the way to go if we’re trying to be calorie conscious. Somehow we’ve embraced the idea that salads are always a light and healthy choice. Sometimes they are – but all too often they’re not.

Sometimes a sandwich is the clear winner in terms of calories and fat. A ham and cheese sandwich ranges from 350 to 450 calories depending upon how much ham and cheese there really is, the type of bread, and whether it comes with mustard or mayo (and, of course, without fries or chips).

And sometimes the salad is a better choice — depending on what goes into it. The nutrient rich plant foods that make the base of a salad are high in antioxidants — especially the dark green, orange, and red vegetables. Most of the vegetables are full of fiber – good for your cholesterol, your GI functioning, and as a way to feel fuller for a longer period of time. Salads take a long time to eat – much longer than sandwiches or pizza that you can scarf down far more quickly.

The Green Base For Salads

The green stuff that’s the base for most salads isn’t the problem. Most greens are very low in calories and pretty nutritious.

• 1 cup shredded Romaine: 8 calories, 1 gram fiber, 1 gram protein, 0 gram fat
• 1 cup of Arugula: 6 calories, 1 gram fiber, 1 gram protein, 0 gram fat
• 1 cup raw spinach: 7 calories, 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram protein
• 1 cup chopped kale: 32 calories, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of protein, 0 gram fat

Calorie Savers:

High calorie add-ins and dressings can make salads a “no thank you” choice.

• Generally, at least ¼ of a cup (frequently more) of dressing is added to a tossed salad. A ladle of creamy dressing has about 360 calories and 38g of fat (a cheeseburger worth).  Vinaigrette dressing, usually 3 parts oil to one part vinegar, adds its own fat blast. For two tablespoons of dressing add:
  • Blue cheese: 165 calories, 15g fat
  • Italian:       160 calories, 15g fat
  • French: 135 calories, 15g fat
  • Low calorie Italian, 15 calories, 0g fat
  • Oil and vinegar:       100 calories, 8g fat
  • 1000 Island:       120 calories, 10g fat
  • Vinegar: 4 calories, 0g fat

• Tuna, macaroni, egg, and chicken salads, the holy grail of delis and salad bars, are loaded with mayonnaise. On average (for a half cup – which is a pretty small serving):
  • chicken salad has around 208 calories, 16g of fat
  • tuna salad has 192 calories, 9g fat
  • tuna pasta salad has 250 calories, 9g fat
  • macaroni salad has 170 calories, 9g fat

• Croutons and Crispy Noodles:
  • ¼ cup of plain croutons has 31 calories, 0g fat
  • 1 serving of McDonald’s Butter Garlic Croutons has 60 calories
  • 1g fat; ¼ cup of crispy noodles has 74 calories, 4g fat
• Dried cranberries: ¼ cup has 98 calories, 0g fat
• Then there’s cheese, for ¼ cup (which is really small):
  • feta has 75 calories, 6g fat
  • shredded cheddar has 114 calories, 9g fat
  • blue cheese has 80 calories, 6g fat

• Beans, nuts and seeds:
  • ¼ cup sunflower seeds: 210 calories, 19g fat
  • chopped walnuts:  193 calories, 18g fat
  • kidney beans, ¼ cup: 55 calories, trace fat
  • chickpeas, ¼ cup: 40 calories, less than 1g fat
• Avocado, ¼ cup: 58 calories, 5g fat
• Bacon bits, 1 tablespoon: 25 calories, 2g fat
• Proteins:
  • chopped egg, 2 tablespoons: 25 calories, 2g fat
  • shrimp, 1 ounce: 30 calories, less than 1g fat
  • water packed tuna, 1 ounce: 35 calories, less than 1g fat
  • turkey, 1 ounce: 35 calories, less than 1g fat
  • chopped ham, 1 ounce: 35 calories, 1g fat
• Bread (often used to sop up leftover dressing): 1 piece of French bread has 82 calories, 1g fat; 1 dinner roll, 78 calories, 2g fat. Dressing sopped up by the bread or roll:  lots of extra fat calories!

Should Salads Go On Your “Do Not Touch” List?

Absolutely not. The healthy stuff in salad tastes great, fills you up, and is good for you.  There are plenty of ways to cut down on the fatty and caloric add-ins and still end up with a really tasty salad.  There are even good choices in fast food and chain restaurants (and plenty of really, really bad ones).

The post Can You Save Calories Eating A Ham And Cheese Sandwich Instead Of A Salad? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

An Experimental Mixture

Some unexpected company prompted me to use up some odds and ends in the fridge and to whittle down my tomato surplus.

Aside from my tomato overload, I had a big bowl of ripe peaches from the farmers market, lots of basil growing on the deck, and a hunk of feta cheese.

Do Things That Grow Together Go Together?

I had read somewhere that things that grow during the same growing season go together – an idea that my Mother, who grew up on a working farm, absolutely upholds.  So, I figured if it’s peach and tomato season, why not try them together?

To go with a roasted chicken I picked up at the market, I made what turned out to be an absolutely delicious tomato, peach, feta, and basil salad.

Tomato, Peach, Feta, And Basil Salad

I didn’t use any precise measurements although the cut up amounts of tomatoes and peaches looked about equal.

Ingredients:

• Equal amounts of tomatoes and ripe peaches cut into small chunks (I halved the larger grape and cherry tomatoes)
• Crumbled feta cheese to taste
• Fresh basil to taste
• Salt
• Balsamic vinegar

1.  Core and seed the larger tomatoes

2.  Chop tomatoes into bite-sized pieces, salt them, and let them drain

3.  Remove the stones (pits) from the peaches and chop the peaches into bite-sized pieces about the same size as the tomatoes

4.  Make a chiffonade of basil (cut it into thin strips)

5.  Mix everything together

6.  Add the crumbled feta

7.  Mix again

8.  Correct the salt and add balsamic vinegar if desired

9.  Serve at room temperature

10. Refrigerate any leftovers – they’re great the next day as a type of tomato/peach salsa on fish, chicken, sandwiches or anything else you can think of.

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A Tuscan Specialty:  Bread And Tomato Salad

Rustic dishes often withstand the test of time — usually because they are easy, make use of local ingredients, and they’re good.   Recipes for the same dish are usually not identical – they are adjusted for the hand that makes them and the tongues that eat them — but they consistently have at least one common central ingredient.  They are dishes that are usually the result of necessity – the local crop, hard winters, what the land and surrounding environment yield, how they stand up to cooking and/or lack of refrigeration.  In most cases they are peasant dishes:  frugal, hearty, and delicious.

Panzanella is a bread and tomato salad (with some other ingredients) that is popular in Tuscany, other regions of Italy, and other parts of the world where the main ingredients:  crusty bread, tomatoes, olive oil, onions, basil – are commonplace.  Typically, the bread is two day to a week old unsalted Tuscan bread – originally, and still, a great way to make use of hard-as-a-rock leftover bread and extra tomatoes, with very tasty results.

In The Bar-Ucci Kitchen With Paola

When I was standing in the little café near our rented villa in Tuscany, I started up an interesting mixed Italian/English conversation with, Paola, the very amiable café owner of Bar-Ucci, the café/wine bar in the village square.  She speaks Italian, I speak English, and much to my surprise, I found myself thinking in Greek (still don’t have an explanation for that).  She being Italian, and me, Greek, it is safe to say that a whole lot of communication was through waving of the hands and facial expression.  We understood each other with no problem.

She invited me into the tiny kitchen behind the café to watch the morning preparation of Panzanella.

Some Leftover Crusty Bread, Ripe Tomatoes, Luscious Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Bright Green Basil, Onions, And A Few More Ingredients . . .

Even though Panzanella is a very rustic dish, it is essential that all of the ingredients be of the best quality. The bread is stale, but if it is supermarket, spongy, and pale, it ends up as a soggy and yucky mess. Lacking access to unsalted Tuscan loaves you can use any good quality crusty loaf. I happen to love olives in any way shape or form, so I’m itching to try combining kalamata olive bread mixed with another crusty variety.

Use the ripest, juiciest tomatoes, the freshest basil, and the best quality extra virgin olive oil available. As with the farro salad I have already written about, Paola, with waving hands punctuating her point, emphasized that extra virgin olive oil was the most important ingredient.  Easy to say when you live surrounded by olive trees with a gigantic olive press housed in a medieval stone building just across the square.  To her, the fabulous bread, vine ripened tomatoes, and awesome bright green basil are not luxury foods – they’re simply the components of breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The only thing that I found really different, and that I don’t love (because I go for crunchy and chewy), is that she soaked her bread in water first, squeezed out any excess drop she could, discarded the center, then tore the crust into pieces. Other recipes just use torn stale bread, without soaking, or even oven toasted bread or torn bread pan fried in olive oil.

You Can Make It A Dinner Salad, Too

Panzanella is totally accepting of a whole array of extra ingredients. With the addition of some protein, it can be a fantastic summer dinner salad.

I have made panzanella before, and I love to add tuna and some crumbled blue cheese or feta along with tomatoes and basil from my garden.  For anyone looking for a way to use up the end of season overflow of tomatoes, this is an ideal way to do it.

Some people also add hard boiled eggs, celery, anchovies, hard cheese, and capers, to name a few possibilities.  As long as you stick to the basics of bread, tomatoes, onion, basil, salt, vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil, add whatever you like (you can even leave out the onions if you want – although I personally consider that heresy!).  It’ll taste great and on top of it all, be a healthy, nutritious meal.

Paola’s Panzanella:  No measurements, just eyeballed

• Crusty bread soaked in water
• Chopped,cored, seeded tomatoes
• Cucumber, halved, sliced, seeded
• Thinly sliced red onion
• Basil, torn into pieces
• Salt, pepper, wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil

Remove bread from water, discard inside, squeeze out as much water as possible, tear crust into pieces and put in a big bowl

Add tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions to taste

Add salt, pepper, oil to taste

Refrigerate for one hour

Adjust seasonings, if necessary, before serving

Heap into a serving bowl or on a plate and garnish with basil leaves

Check out other Panzanella recipes at:

Epicurious

Alton Brown, Good Eats, Food Network

Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa, Food Network

The post Eating In Tuscany: Panzanella appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

In the middle of the tiny village square, just opposite the restored church, is a charming little café/wine shop/food shop run by a happy woman with a booming voice and matching personality.  The minute she learned I was very interested in the food she served, particularly her panzanella (bread salad) and her farro salad, she invited me into her small kitchen to watch the daily preparation of both.

Just as I learned to cook from my Greek, diner owner, short-order cook and dinner preparing father, she measured nothing, eyeballed proportions,  tasted everything, and used seasonal vegetables and regional products almost exclusively.

Only Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil

As I watched each salad being assembled, I was told repeatedly (and forcefully) that the most important ingredient is extra virgin olive oil.  Believe me, even when you grow up with olive oil as a staple, as I did, at ten in the morning when the booming voice repeats this as every ingredient is added, it makes an impression.  Of course, when you are in a village that has olive trees everywhere – encasing the vineyards, along every road interspersed with cypress tress, and grown in pots in front of homes and the café – with the vineyard’s very own olive press residing in  the medieval building across the way – using a generous (really generous) amount of the truly organic first pressed, intense, flavorful, and deep green, is both a cinch and a way of life.

Farro:  A Nutritious And Versatile Grain

The café’s farro salad was extremely fresh and delicious.  A little research shows that farro (FAHR-oh) is not wheat, but a plant and grain all its own that looks like light brown rice and has a nutty taste. It is lighter than other whole grains and contains a starch similar to Arborio rice (which is why it can be used in risottos).

Farro, a nutritious whole grain, sometimes referred to as spelt (which is really more like a close cousin), is rich in fiber, magnesium, and vitamins A, B, C and E; easily digested; and low in gluten. A serving size, ½ cup cooked (4 oz), has 100 calories, 1g fat, 26g carbs (3.5g fiber), and 4g protein.

Farro has history – it’s the original grain that fed the Mediterranean and Near Eastern populations for thousands of years and was the standard ration that fueled the Roman legions that marched through Italy.

A Healthy and Nutritious Whole Grain

For centuries, farro has been a mainstay of Tuscany, a region in northeastern Italy. Because farro is not an easy grain to grow and can produce low yields, farmers in the Mediterranean switched to grains that had higher yields.  However, with an increased interest in whole grains, farro is making a comeback helped by inventive chefs who are adding it to salads, soups, and meat entrees. With a  husk that adheres to the grain,  faro is high in fiber, vitamin B, and protein. Tuscans often combine it with legumes making it a complete protein meal.

Cooking Farro

Farro (botanical name, triticum dicoccum) is easy to prepare and can be found in Mediterranean groceries, specialty and whole food stores.  Check the package directions because some farros may need presoaking. It doubles in volume when cooked and keeps for 3 to 4 days, covered, in the refrigerator.

There’s a lot of leeway with cooking time, but when it is boiled it should be tender but still have some firmness in its center. People have a preference for the level of chewiness or mushiness of their farro and cook it accordingly. Most recipes call for cooking it anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes.  It can be eaten hot or at room temperature, as a salad, side dish, cereal, or added to soup.  It continues to absorb liquids even when taken off the heat, so it can really plump. It’s darn hard to overcook it.

Volpaia Salad de faro

This is the recipe from the café in Volpaia.  No measurements – everything to taste.  They put the farro in cold water, boil it for 15 minutes, rinse it in cold water, and then let it cool to room temperature before adding the other ingredients.

Ingredients

Spelt (farro)

Tomatoes, cored, seeded, chopped

Celery

Onion

Mozarella

Salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil

Fresh basil for garnish

• Put farro in cold water. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes

• Drain and rinse in cold water

• Mix in tomatoes, celery, onion, mozzarella

• Add salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil to taste

• Mix and refrigerate

• Adjust seasonings before serving

Tip:

Farro makes a great nutritious and filling salad.  Think about adding other proteins: chicken, tuna, hard boiled eggs, for a main dish salad.  In cooler weather use it for risotto or a pilaf or add it to soups as you would barley or rice.

Stay tuned for more Tuscan eating adventures and photographs, including my morning spent in a Tuscan cooking class and lunch at the home of the chef and owner of the Volpaia vineyards.  So good!

The post Eating In Tuscany: A Recipe For Farro Salad appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

If It Says Salad Does It Mean It’s Healthy?

Short answer:  No.  Maybe your salad is healthy and delicious, or maybe it’s just delicious and far from a healthy meal.

This is something I see all of the time:  You are in line at a buffet or waiting to order your meal in a cafeteria.  The person in front of you hems and haws over his or her choice – mumbling about trying to “be careful about calories.”  He or she then goes on to say, “Oh, I guess I’ll have a salad,” like it’s the best choice of “diet food” even though it’s not really what the belly and mind seem to be craving.

In the pursuit of cutting calories, the salad might be a far worse choice than, for example, a turkey or ham sandwich with mustard and veggies, or grilled chicken with veggies.

There are some very nice choices of healthy salads and there are some pretty bad choices, too.  In many cases you can do well or horribly in the same restaurant, depending on what you select to eat.

Here are some examples of fast/chain food salads — but remember that each is just one menu item.  In each restaurant you have plenty of other options.

Calorically Good To Reasonable Choices:

• Panera Bread’s BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad, with mild BBQ sauce, no dressing (350 calories, 10g fat)

• Wendy’s Chicken Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken Fillet, with home-style garlic croutons (490 calories, 32g fat)

• McDonald’s Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken, without Creamy Southwest dressing (320 calories)

• Burger King’s Tendergrill Chicken Garden Salad with Ken’s Ranch Dressing (490 calories, 30g fat)

Then there’s the:  “how many calories, you’ve got to be kidding” salads.

• Outback Queensland Salad with Bleu Cheese Dressing (1075.8 calories, 81.6g fat)

• Cosi Signature Salad (130 calories, 45g fat)

• Ruby Tuesday’s Southwestern Beef Salad (1139 calories, 81g fat)

• Wendy’s Southwest Taco Salad (680 calories, 39g fat)

• Olive Garden’s Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, without Caesar dressing (850 calories, 64g fat)

SocialDieter Tips:

If you are putting together your own salad at a salad bar – or making your own at home – here are some tips to keep your salad healthy and delicious.

• Dressings are not just decorative – they can be disastrous. If you have enough flavorful stuff in your salad, you may not even need dressing.  If you do, the creamy stuff usually is more caloric (you can always dilute it with vinegar).  Most vinegar has almost no calories so pour it on.  There are many choices of light or calorie free dressings.  Most places glop on dressing – you’d be surprised how little you need for taste. A dieter’s trick is to ask for dressing on the side and dip your fork into the dressing before you snare a mouthful of salad.
• Mayonnaise has around 90 calories a tablespoon.  Think about how much goes into chicken or tuna salad.  Use light mayo, mustard, or low fat yogurt instead.
• Go for reduced fat or fat free cheese instead of liberally sprinkling on the full fat stuff. ¼ cup of reduced fat (2%) shredded cheddar has 80 calories, 6g fat, 7g protein; fat free feta has  40 calories, 0g fat, 7g protein.
• If you are going out to order a salad order from a place that has low fat dressing choices and lean proteins (grilled chicken, tuna without mayo).  You can always use only half a package of salad dressing instead of a whole one.
• Lay off the croutons and wontons.  Sure, they’re crunchy, but you’re not getting anything nutritious from them.  Get your crunch from carrots, cucumbers, or a very light sprinkling of sunflower seeds or nuts (caloric but healthy).
• Salads with dark green lettuce and colorful vegetables add more vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.
• Make your salad more of a meal by adding lean proteins: poultry (grilled), seafood, a hardboiled egg, or beans. Add whole grains like brown rice or quinoa, without dressing, to really beef it up. Leftover lean proteins and veggies can be chopped up and added to salad the next day. Keep a supply of canned tuna, anchovies, and beans for quick calorie sparing protein additions.
• Certain extras pile on calories.  You could have fries and a bacon cheeseburger for the same calories as a salad loaded with creamy dressing, shredded or crumbled cheese, bacon, avocado, mayonnaise salads, meat, nuts, and croutons. Instead, heap on tomatoes, asparagus, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, scallions, onions, mushrooms, peppers, cucumbers, arugula, spinach, and herbs. Olives add about 4 calories apiece – but, add an enormous amount of flavor and may help you forego dressing.
• Check out the nutritional info before you order – and remember to add in the totals for dressing, croutons, and other “extras.”  Some municipalities currently require calorie counts to be posted in fast/chain food restaurants.  The new health care bill will require posting in fast/chain food restaurants with more than 20 outlets. Almost all chain restaurants list their nutritional stats online.

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A Healthy Meal Or A Caloric Fat Fest?

It’s time for lunch or perhaps to pick up a bite for dinner on your way home.  It’s Monday after a weekend of a bit of overeating.  Time for something light and healthy.

How about a salad?  Here’s a chance for plenty of vegetables, other healthy stuff, and a chance to save some calories, too.  Yeah, right!!!  Think again and read on.

Wonderful Reasons To Have A Salad

There are a whole bunch of good reasons to chow down on a nice big salad.

• It’s easy to make your own from the salad bar at the local market, to order one for delivery, or to rip open a bag of lettuce and plop a piece of grilled chicken on top.
• The nutrient rich plant foods that make the base of a salad are high in antioxidants — especially the dark green and orange vegetables, and legumes.
• Most of the vegetables are full of fiber – good for your cholesterol, your GI functioning, and as a way to feel fuller for a longer period of time.
• Salads take a long time to eat – much longer than sandwiches or pizza that you can scarf down far more quickly.
• Salads can look really appetizing and can cost very little (they can cost a lot, too, depending upon the add-ons).
• Salads are a great way to recycle leftovers – just toss them in the mix.

Where’s The Nightmare?

Answer:  Hidden in the fatty and sneaky high caloric add-ons and dressing.

• Generally, at least ¼ of a cup (frequently more) of dressing is added to a tossed salad. A ladle of creamy dressing has about 360 calories and 38g of fat (a cheeseburger’s worth).  Vinaigrette dressing, usually 3 parts oil to one part vinegar, adds its own fat blast.
• Tuna, macaroni, and chicken salads, the holy grail of delis and salad bars, are loaded with mayonnaise, which of course, is loaded with fat.  On average (for a half cup):  chicken salad has 208 calories, 16g of fat; tuna salad  has 192 calories, 9g fat; tuna pasta salad has 397 calories, 9g fat; macaroni salad has 170 calories, 9g fat.
• Cheese, please – or maybe not. For a 1/4 cup serving:  Shredded cheddar has 114 calories, 9g fat;  blue cheese has 80 calories, 6g fat;  feta has 75 calories, 6g fat.
• Portions:  The calorie counts above are for ½ cup of salad, ¼ cup of cheese.  Those are pretty small portions.  Do you have that kind of restraint?
• Croutons and Crispy Noodles: ¼ cup of plain croutons has 31 calories, 0g fat; 1 serving of  McDonald’s Butter Garlic Croutons  has 60 calories, 1g fat;  ¼ cup of crispy noodles has 74 calories, 4g fat
• Dried cranberries: ¼ cup has 98 calories, 0g fat
• Nuts and Seeds (1/4 cup): Sunflower seeds have 210 calories, 19g fat; chopped walnuts:  193 calories, 18g fat
• Avocado (1/4 cup) have 58 calories, 5g fat
• Bacon: 1 tablespoon of bacon bits has 25 calories, 2g fat
• Bread (often used to sop up leftover dressing):  1 piece of French bread has  82 calories, 1g fat; 1 dinner roll has 78 calories, 2g fat
• Dressing sopped up by the bread or roll:  lots of extra fat calories!

Should Salads Go On Your “Do Not Touch” List?

No way, absolutely not. The healthy stuff in salad tastes great, fills you up, and is good for you.  There are plenty of ways to cut down on the fatty and caloric add-ons and still end up with a really tasty meal.  There are even good choices in fast food and chain restaurants (and plenty of really, really bad ones).

SocialDieter Tip: don’t stop eating salad, just be aware of what add-ons and dressing can do.  Check my next post for some very helpful info on choosing and making salads and for the low down on a few fast and chain food “good” and “don’t even think about it” choices.

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