Super Sandwiches!

That sandwiches recipe collection has been sitting on my Recipe Box page since I began this site, so it’s about time it got featured.

 

I have collected I think something around 70 sandwich and sandwich fixings recipes in my copy of MacGourmet. You’ll find a few of the sandwiches I’ve highlighted already in the blog along with a ton of new ones.

 

Unfortunately, not every sandwich I’ve ever made is in my recipe collection. Scott tells me that sandwiches are one of my specialties (he loves ’em), but I guess inherent to that is I tend to mostly work those recipes out off the top of my head. Only recently have I started making more of an effort to record what’s going into my cooking.

 

So I’ll have to promise more original sandwich recipes soon. Since Scott needs a sandwich to take to the archives and the library with him on most weekdays, I imagine I’ll have opportunity to think some up.

 

If you don’t have MacGourmet, don’t worry — all of these recipes are posted as web pages for you to save into your own computer file or print.

 

Finally, let me highlight one recipe from the collection: Creamy Tofu Salad.

 

I know, I myself felt quite wary of the idea of using chilled tofu as a substitute for hard-boiled eggs. I did fear some sliminess. But my fears turned out to be unfounded, as any liquid left on the tofu just mixes with the mayo and seasonings to make for a nice, creamy sauce.

 

Why bother with tofu instead of eggs? For one thing, you don’t have to cook any eggs. That’s an extra bonus for those who might tend to overcook their hard-boiled eggs — no green rings or sulfur-y smell possible here. Also, tofu is cheap (that is, in America it’s cheap); has less fat, saturated fat, calories, and cholesterol (though dietary cholesterol has a far smaller impact on blood cholesterol levels than fat); and contains more protein than hard-boiled eggs.

 

Oh, and maybe this isn’t an issue for you, but someone I know doesn’t like the hard-boiled egg but enjoys the tofu. So maybe this recipe will conquer some pickiness issues for you, too. It’s tasty stuff.

 

By the way, you can substitute a good squirt of prepared mustard for the dry stuff.

 

Creamy Tofu Salad
Source: Gourmet
Yield: 4 servings

This looks and tastes like egg salad, even though it’s made with tofu.

• 1 package (14-oz) firm tofu, rinsed and drained
  
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
  
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
  
• ½ teaspoon dry mustard
• 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
  
• ¼ cup chopped fresh chives
  
• ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
  
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
  
• Accompaniments: sandwich bread, lettuce leaves; sliced tomato
  

Finely mash tofu with a fork in a bowl, then let drain in a sieve set over another bowl, about 15 minutes (discard liquid).

While tofu drains, whisk together mayonnaise, lemon juice, turmeric, and mustard in bowl, then stir in tofu, celery, chives, salt, and pepper.

Download Creamy Tofu Salad into MacGourmet.

Super Sandwiches recipe collection

Brown Mustard Potato Salad

I, like many, am a potato addict. Something about the mealy texture and starchiness make this vegetable feel satisfying on a level achieved by only beans in plant world (at least to me).

 

I, like many, tend to get my potato fix from French fries. In fact, French fries are likely the number one vegetable dish in most kids’ diets. (If you don’t think so, try visiting the local public school cafeteria sometime. Only if you consider pancake syrup a vegetable would fries be trumped.)

 

I, like many, think I should probably eat less fried foods. No matter what your position is on fat, no one can contest that foods cooked in fat have more calories than foods cooked in water. And as you might have guessed from my review of the CalorieKing software, I’m trying to cut back on calories.

 

You know, potatoes don’t often catch a break in the calorie department, though. If they’re not fried up into hash browns or home fries, they’re drenched in mayo (potato salad) or butter and cream (mashed and baked potatoes).

 

Potatoes can be part of a healthy diet, despite their starchiness. They get a bad rap from their fatty friends, that’s all. A baked potato, on its own, has fewer calories than weight grams (93 calories per 100 grams), making it a food you can enjoy with only a modicum of moderation.

 

A baked potato with salt and maybe 10 spritzes of the lovely I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray was a meal I could eat while trying desperately to drop pounds pre-wedding and still feel full. All for 169 calories!

 

However, this is an entry on potato salad, not baked potatoes.

 

How do we trim down the calorie count for potato salad?

 

First, swap out the mayonnaise. Replace some of it with reduced-fat or light mayo, and replace the rest with spicy brown mustard. This salad is so highly seasoned because of the mustard that you’re not likely to notice any difference in the taste of the mayo, even if you’re the picky sort who always goes for the full-fat kind. As for the mustard, it has way fewer calories than any mayo.

 

Second, bulk up the salad with low-cal vegetables. I did just argue that potatoes are not high-cal on their own, but they certainly don’t hold a candle to celery in the rock-bottom stats department. There’s even that rumor that celery takes more calories to digest than you ingest from the veggie. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that five medium stalks have only 28 calories total.

 

Third, garnish with more high-flavor, low-calorie items. Pickles have a yummy sour, salty zing, and if you stick with the dill variety rather than the sweet, they won’t cost you many calories. Seasonings like dill and garlic powder also help punch up the flavor so you don’t miss the fat.

 

Finally, sneak in extra flavor where you can. Potatoes can be a bit bland on their own. Sprinkling the hot tots with some sweet vinegar helps enhance their taste even without our spicy sauce. You could use balsamic vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar for a sweeter taste, but it might turn the potatoes a slightly unappetizing color. Still, it’s a thought worthy of future experimentation.

 

Now, the stats:

 

You can have one cup of regular homemade potato salad for 358 calories.

 

You can eat the entire four-medium-potato recipe of my Brown Mustard Potato salad for 589 calories. Since you wouldn’t do that, know that one serving registers a mere 147 calories. That’s a savings of . . .

 

211 calories per serving! And you get more than one cup per serving in my recipe, too.

 

Brown Mustard Potato Salad
Source: Colleen Fischer
Yield: 4 servings

• 4 medium all-purpose potatoes, diced
  
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  
• 4 stalks celery, sliced thin
  
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  
• ¼ cup sour pickle slices, diced
  
• ½ teaspoon dried dill
  
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  
• ½ teaspoon paprika
  
• ½ cup brown mustard
  
• ½ cup light mayonnaise
  
• salt
  
• pepper
  

Place the potatoes in a pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Cook for about 10 minutes or until fork-tender. Drain the potatoes and then place them on a baking sheet. Drizzle the three tablespoons (or enough to coat) of vinegar on the potatoes and toss them to evenly distribute the acid. Spread the potatoes out to cool.

Meanwhile, chop up the other vegetables and place them in a mixing bowl. Add the dill, garlic powder, and paprika. Stir. Add the potatoes when they are cooled and mix again to distribute the seasonings.

Add the mustard and mayonnaise to the bowl. Mix thoroughly. Taste, add salt and pepper as necessary, and mix again. Serve.

Notes:

If you happen to get slightly larger potatoes than I had and need more sauce, add mustard and mayo in equal proportions, about a tablespoon each at a time, until the consistency is right. But don’t start adding more until you’ve thoroughly mixed the salad, as it will look kind of dry at first. Keep stirring until the sauce is evenly distributed before adding more so that you don’t end up with a drowned salad.

If you take the salad to a picnic, remember to keep it on ice as the starchy pototoes are bound to get germ-friendly if they’re out in the sun too long.

Nutritional notes:
per serving:
147 calories
4 g fat
3 g protein
20 g carbohydrates
3 g fiber

Download Brown Mustard Potato Salad into MacGourmet.

Fall’s Figure Foes

Most of the items in MSNBC’s list of the “Eight Most Fattening Foods of Fall” aren’t at all surprising (I wouldn’t have expected to see turducken just because it’s not exactly commonplace, though with the duck and sausage stuffing, it sure sounds fatty), but it’s good to have a kick in the pants every now and then to remind one not to overindulge.

Some of the usual suspects here can be made healthier, though. For that Starbucks drink, how about ordering it with nonfat milk (instead of getting the default whole or 2%) and asking for a smaller size than the giant venti? No one needs a venti-sized anything when it comes to hopped-up-on-caffeine coffee drinks, frankly.

As for mashed potatoes, you can make them without butter and cream! Cut back on those calorie-laden flavor enhancers to save a ton of calories. I prefer to be able to taste potato and seasonings rather than butter in my mashers.

Let’s look now at the apple pie. Most of the bad stuff in any fruit pie is in the crust. You need a lot of fat to make a flaky pastry like that, and in pie crusts (especially those you buy pre-made) bakers often employ those nasty trans fats in shortening — not that the saturated fats in butter or lard are much better. And most of the time — let’s be honest — the pie crust doesn’t taste very good. It’s soggy on the bottom, or flavorless, or burnt . . . the list of potential problems is long. I say skip the crust (it’s a thankless task working with crust anyway) and just serve the filling, maybe with a little oatmeal and brown sugar streusel on the top. Still indulgent, but less so than before.

You can make stuffing a bit lighter if you don’t cook it inside the bird. Cooked in its own dish or on the stovetop with some fat-free broth, it doesn’t absorb all the greasy drippings. I know, it certainly tastes a lot better with the drippings, but keep in mind as well that stuffing a bird pretty much always leads to either underdone (and bacteria-infested) stuffing or overcooked meat.

(Link via FitFare)

Omelet Sandwich

Note: I wrote this on June 21, 2005, for another food site I was toying with. It’s still one of my favorite recipes! If you’re looking to lighten it further, you can use turkey bacon, although it lacks something in unctuousness. Also, if you have trouble digesting hot sauce (cayenne often does a number on me these days), try picante sauce (which is a finely chopped salsa).

With a wedding to prepare for, it’s imperative that I start to clean up my eating habits. I’ve read that a wedding is often the only thing that kicks people into gear as far as healthy eating goes. The key will be keeping those habits after the wedding is over, naturally; the same article also noted that married people are heavier than single people. I have plenty of time (two years), but it’s healthiest to lose weight slowly anyway.

I’ve decided to try TV chefs’ recommendation to alter some of my favorite recipes to cut calories. My omelet sandwich seemed like the natural choice. I replaced the egg with a couple of egg whites (a savings of fat and calories without losing most nutrients) and the full-fat cheese with reduced-fat cheese (low-fat dairy products are supposed to enhance weight loss — at least the government is telling us so now).

Original recipe:
Two thick slices bacon: 80 calories, 6g fat
Two slices whole-wheat bread: 160 calories, 2g fat
Dash hot sauce: 0 calories, 0g fat
1 slice American cheese: 80 calories, 7g fat
1 egg: 70 calories, 4.5g fat
1 tbsp butter: 100 calories, 11g fat (8g saturated)
Total: 490 calories, 30.5g fat

Modified recipe:
Two thick slices bacon: 80 calories, 6g fat
Two slices whole-wheat bread: 160 calories, 2g fat
Dash hot sauce: 0 calories, 0g fat
1 slice 2% Milk American cheese: 60 calories, 4g fat
1 tsp spreadable butter with canola: 34 calories, 3.7g fat (1.5g saturated)
2 egg whites: 34 calories, 0g fat
Total: 368 calories, 15.7g fat

That’s a savings of 122 calories and 14.8g fat. I don’t generally like using unnaturally reduced in fat products, but the cheese here is still considered real cheese (albeit processed, but still real). It’s part of Kraft’s Deli Deluxe line, not the Singles line. As for the spreadable butter, it has as much fat and calories as butter but less saturated fat due to the canola oil. It has an advantage over margarine in that it has no partially hydrogenated oils, so it’s not an unnatural fat.

Also, the bacon in the lighter sandwich may have less fat and calories than stated, as I microwaved it rather than baking or pan-frying it. The paper towels soak up a lot of rendered fat.

Omelet Sandwich
Source: Colleen Fischer
Yield: 1 serving

• 2 slices whole-wheat toast
• 2 slices bacon
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 egg
• Hot sauce, to taste
• 1 slice American cheese

Cook the bacon, preferably by baking in a 400-degree oven for 10-15 minutes. Break each cooked slice in half. Toast the bread and put on a plate.

Meanwhile, heat a small skillet over medium-low flame. Melt the butter in the pan. Whisk the egg until foamy, then pour into the skillet. Stir the egg. As it begins to set, lift up cooked portions with a silicone spatula and tilt the pan to allow uncooked egg to flow underneath. Cook for about two minutes or until the egg is set. It may still look moist on top. Flip the omelet and slide it onto one of the bread slices.

Sprinkle the omelet with hot sauce if desired. Top with cheese slice and the bacon.

Notes:
Lower-fat version:

Substitute 1 teaspoon of butter or spreadable butter for the 1 tablespoon of butter (make sure you use a very slick nonstick pan), two egg whites for the egg, and reduced-fat 2% milk cheese for the regular cheese.

Nutritional information per serving:
Regular sandwich: 490 calories, 30.5g fat
Lightened sandwich: 368 calories, 15.7g fat

Download Omelet Sandwich into MacGourmet.