A scrambled egg and bacon platter you can live with!

Click on to enlarge!

And you can enjoy it knowing its low calorie (183 calories), low sodium (392 mg) and has very little cholesterol (8 mg).

How did I do it? I used egg beaters for the eggs and fake salt (potassium chloride) for the salt. Oh, and the bread was wheat, of course! This meal also forms a good jumping off place for those who desire a bit more bulk in the morning. You can easily add some jam or jelly and some diced peaches or whatever and still come in below 300 calories!

Mini stuffed pepper meal at a buck a serving!

This ugly looking but fabulous tasting meal features home grown bell peppers (read as small and thin walled) that are stuffed with a combo of hamburger, rice, onion and tomato sauce. They are cooked along with two russet potatoes and some carrots. This meal goes together easily and tastes great! Did I also mention that each serving cost me only about a buck? Time needed to make everything was about 30-40 minutes, not including the slow cooker times.

Ingredients:

½ lb ground beef

4 mini bell peppers

2 medium russet potatoes, rough cut

2 carrots, sliced into equal chunks

1 cup of instant rice (pre-cooked)

10 to 12 thin slices of you favorite cheese

1/4 small onion (yellow or white)

8 oz can of tomato sauce

Salt and pepper to taste (I used fake salt)

Directions:

Prepare a cup of instant rice according to the package directions. Slice the tops off the peppers and clear the interiors of membranes and seeds. Chop what you can from the tops and place in a frying pan set to medium heat. Chop up the onion and toss it into the pan along with the ground beef. Brown the ground beef, stirring occasionally. Drain the meat mixture and then add to a mixing bowl. Add in the rice and season with salt and pepper. Add ½ the can of tomato sauce to the bowl and mix everything thoroughly. Set in the fridge along with the peppers.

In a slow cooker set to high, add the chopped carrots and potatoes. Also add just enough tomato sauce to lightly cover reserving the rest for the tops of the stuffed peppers. Cover and cook for 2-3 hours or until the potatoes and carrots feel almost done.

Take the peppers and meat mix from the fridge and stuff the peppers with the meat mixture. Place the peppers in a microwave over for about 2 minutes to get them warmed up. (At this point the pepper should still feel somewhat solid). Take the stuffed peppers over to the slow cooker and carefully place them on top of the carrots and potatoes. Add the cheese making an X-shaped pattern on top. Finally, drizzle the rest of the tomato sauce over the tops of each pepper and recover the slow cooker. Cook for an additional hour or so on the low setting. Plate and enjoy! Serves 4.

Notes:

This meal is not only great tasting, but it's down right cost effective if you grow your own peppers, potatoes and carrots in the process. Even though I had to purchase the potatoes and carrots from a grocery store the per serving cost was still only about a half a buck!

The entire meal made up about four 13 ounce servings. Each serving consisted of a single stuff pepper, some potato wedges and a few carrots. Here is the nutritional breakout:

Calories           417

Cal fr fat          87

Sodium            394 mg

Cholesterol      58 mg

Carbs               59 mg

All-in-all, not a bad meal considering you can serve a family of four for about four bucks!

 

Ten ways I annoy people!

I have to admit it. I do have a tendency to bother people from time to time. One family even sent me a list of ten things I’d done that annoyed them in the past. Here they are:

1)      The time I brought a bottle of Night Train wine over for Thanksgiving dinner.

2)      My habit of calling frequently at 3AM to “discuss old times".

3)      The time I emailed a video I made consisting entirely of dire FBI copy warnings.

4)      My habit of drumming my fingers on every surface I encounter.

5)      My habit of referring to others as ‘Champ’ or ‘Tiger’, while referring to myself as ‘Coach’.

6)      Wearing my pants on backwards just for grins.

7)      Pretending my mouse is a ‘CB radio’ and saying “Uh, 10-4 good buddy” more than a few dozen times.

8)      Sitting in my front yard, in a lawn chair, while pointing a hair dryer at passing cars.

9)      Staring at a point on their chin when their talking with a growing look of concern.

10)  Sadly informing them that their children certainly don’t look very promising, and really meaning it!

A sad farewell!

Click to enlarge

You know what you have to do!

Or maybe I should have said 'like your way of life'...

Critique: Beef Chuck Tender Roast

Only about 172 calories!

Anyone who has purchased meat at a grocery store, recently, has more than likely encountered a little touch of sticker shock! Long gone are those so-called cheap cuts of meat. I can remember eating lots of roast beef as a youth because my folks had to scrimp and save money in order to buy groceries at the local Jewel Osco located in Mt. Prospect Illinois. Back then (in 1978) you could purchase a five pound roast for about $3.95 – enough for a great dinner with enough left over for a good number of sandwiches later in the week. (Of course, back then, potatoes were 9 cents a pound and a carton of eggs could be had for sixty cents)!

Today, even a small pound and a half roast costs over $7 – just enough meat for one dinner and a few sandwiches. So, it’s important to know how to cook these little guys properly. The roast beef pictured here weighed in at 1.45 pounds and cost $7.53. To prepare it, I employed an old Dutch skillet I had inherited from my parents. I heated it up after adding a few chopped onions, garlic and virgin oil. I then browned all the sides of the meat which has been allowed to reach room temperature first. Just before baking, I placed a small rack in the bottom of the skillet to elevate the meat. Everything was then covered and placed in a pre-heated oven set to 325F. for about 40 minutes. A meat thermometer was used to insure that the internal temperature was between 145F (medium rare) and 155F (medium).  Once the meat was done (see this site for more complete directions), I allowed it about ten minutes to rest on a cooling rack – this to insure that the juices did not run out all over the counter when I sliced it.

This meal, which took under an hour to fix, turned out extremely well. The meat was just lightly pink in the middle (medium) which was re-enforced by a thermometer reading of 150F. Add a couple of veggies and some horseradish and you have the makings for a great repast.

Homemade BBQ Chicken gets my vote every time!

Fast food or home cooking?

After enduring a less than stellar dining experience involving a 2-piece chicken dinner at KFC recently, I elected to make my own BBQ Chicken on the outdoor grill. Something I should have been doing all along and here’s why!

Cost benefits of a homemade meal

As I mentioned in my earlier post concerning KFC, a 2-piece extra crispy chicken meal cost me over seven dollars. For that amount of money you get 2 pieces of chicken along with two sides and a biscuit. (Oh, yes and a diet Pepsi or soda). Now compare that to this meal I made myself pictured above at right. Yeah, and it cost only about a buck and a half!

So OK, there’s no biscuit! I substituted green beans in the homemade version! So sue me! I can do without those extra bread calories anyway.