Saturday 12 March 2011

Low cal way of cooking

Update hari ni khas untuk readers yang teruja tengok our low calorie food yang I tayang hari2. Like we said, we are not on a strict diet, it’s more of a lifestyle change.

We still eat normal food but I alter the ingredients to make the food lower in calories and a bit healthier. I guess the only thing yang I have stopped doing for now is deep frying (and baking cakes). Tu yang bekalan canola oil I masih berlitre2 lagi dalam store room tu! I selalu beli canola oil in a 20litre/pack which will last us a long time. And I baru aje beli bulan 11 hari tu, so sekarang that box masih penuh and rasanya mau kot bertahan untuk 1 tahun, hahahaSmile.

Even The Other Half yang jarang makan fresh fruits, bila start healthy diet ni akan bawak bekalan fresh fruit to work hari2. Nasib baik lah Summer fruit still banyak in season so mostly hari2 I akan beli plums, pluots, apricots, nectarines, grapes, rockmelon, kiwi to fill the fruit bowl. Dia kata, tak pernah dia makan fruit sebanyak yang dia makan sekarang ni, hehehe.

Steam-frying method:

"Steam-fry" simply means sautéing without fat/oil. To do
this, I use a non stick pan or wok, sprayed sparingly with oil from a
pump sprayer, or with cooking spray.

(It depends on apa yang I masak, kadang2 I tak spray pun with oil and they still taste good.)

This is how I did the Oil-less vegetarian mee goreng:

-Heat the non stick wok over medium heat, add the chopped onions/ garlic/ ginger/ chilli paste, then add one or two tablespoons of liquid (water or stock), depending on the amount of vegetables. Do not put too much vegetables in the pan, or your vegetables will "stew" instead of “fry”.

-Cook over medium to high heat until the liquid starts to evaporate, stirring with a spatula or wooden spoon. Keep stirring until the vegetables are done to your liking, adding JUST ENOUGH liquid to keep the vegetables from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
You can stop when the veggies are soft, but not brown, or you can keep on until they brown a bit.

-(If you letak chilli paste/boh, you kena letak air banyak sikit so it has time to cook without it being hangit.)

-Once the onion/ garlic/ ginger/ chilli combo is cooked, then you can start adding other vegetables (like julienned carrots, beans, capsicum). Add some more liquid and cover the wok with a lid to steam the veges until half cooked.

-(If you want to do meat-based mee goreng, you can add diced chicken or diced beef or seafood at this stage before the vegetables. Increase the heat a bit to ‘goreng’ the meat. You dont need to add water masa masak the meat, they cook nicely on the non stick.)

-Then add the rinsed fresh noodles (I guna 500g untuk 6 orang makan). I cuma rinse the noodles in cold water sebab I tak nak dia kembang sangat. And most fresh noodles have a bit of oil in them anyway so tu yang tak perlu guna minyak untuk meng’goreng’.

-Once you’ve added the noodles, I added some kicap cair (around 2 tablespoon) and then 1 teaspoon of kicap manis and some more water to cook the noodles and the veges. Masa ni tak payah cover the wok, but you just have to keep on stirring (macam you menggoreng lah). Then I added some taugeh.

- If you letak too much kicap or tomato sauce or chilli sauce, it will increase the calorie count as well. So, just bear that in mind.

-Macam buat mee goreng basah but without too much liquid. Liquid tu just enough to lembutkan the noodles aje.

-(kalau you have added meat or tofu or what not, the calorie count will be higher lah sebab calories in meat and tofu are higher than veges.)

- Once cooked, just tambah salt and pepper according to taste.

Easy kan Smile.

The oven-baked fish pulak, I used this recipe but I reduced the amount of soy sauce and I added a bit lof lemon juice to it and I tambah sliced fresh chilli.

And last night, I made pizza. Every Friday night for the past few weeks, I buat pizza sampai menyampah I tengok pizza tu (but still boleh telan lagi, hahaha).

IMG_8313

IMG_8316

Our low calorie chicken pizza version. Macam mana I boleh reduced the calories? By reducing the amount of cheese I used and substituting them with the low fat version Smile.

For this large pizza, I cuma guna 25g of low fat cheddar cheese and guna 100g bocconcini cheese instead of mozzarella. Kalau you all tak jumpa low fat cheddar or bocconcini, you can still use normal cheddar and mozzarella.

The trick to only use a small amount of cheese and stretching it to cover 1 large pizza nicely is to use the small grater.

IMG_8320

See, this is my grater. I used to guna the grater on the right side to grate my mozzarella and cheddar for my pizza. Jadi the cheese were grated into big slices so you need more to cover the pizza.

But now, I use the left side of the grater to grate my cheeses. The cheese yang di grated akan keluar so halus and ‘weightless’. So, when I grate 25g of cheese, nampak macam banyak sangat I dapat and dapat tabur them to cover 1 large pizza.

And I increase the amount of veges on the pizza and do thin base instead of thick base. And I grilled the skinless chicken I used in the pizza.

Kalau I masak green chicken curry pulak. I will use light coconut milk instead of the full fat version and skinless chicken fillet as well.

The lasagne yang I masak the other day, I loosely follow this recipe. But I used cottage cheese instead of ricotta and I only used 200g cottage cheese aje pun.

With lasagna, it’s the white sauce and beef mince with the fat that brings the calories up so try to reduce the amount of white sauce and cheese you use to make it.

Every little bit helps I guess Smile.

15 comments:

ADLIL RAJIAH said...

droooooooling~~~

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June said...

wah betul2 ikut by the rules... boleh buat the biggest loser show sendiri

an15 said...

i dah stop masak merah sebab tak sanggup nak cook blend chilies dlm minyak 1/2 periuk tu. buleh cook dlm air je eh rupe ye.

nak kidnap la weighing scale yg i duk guna timbang chemical powders kat lab tu lepas ni :p

Miss Twinkletoes said...

omaigolf..hehe sdapnye..nyum2..

blu4sky said...

LG,
i agree with you.. i use water instead of oil for example bila nak masak telur mata kerbau, i basahkan dulu my non stick pan...klu i nak buat omelette i guna oil spray and masak my diced tomato dulu before masukkan egg to retain the moisture..

but for this 1 week school holiday..kitorang balik kg.. tak tau lah if kecundang ke tak berat yang i dah lost ni..with my mom's cooking... very difficult to resist :p

lemongrass said...

Jiji-Fify,
Pizza without a lot of cheese pun boleh nampak so yummy kan :-)

June,
hehehe...sementara my hubby still has a lot of weight to lose, kenalah I mengalter everything :-)

Anis,
I pun kalau buat sambal nasi lemak dulu, memang guna banyak jugak minyak. Tapi itu yg buat dia sedap kan, hehehe

Naddy,
low fat pizza yg yummy :-)

blu4sky,
Actually, it's quite easy kan to substitute and alter recipes ni to make it low fat. But rasa dia will eb a bit different lah kan :-).
I think kalau I balik M'sia for a holiday, memang I akan pasrah for my weight to increase tiba2 sbb melantak sakan, hahaha.

zarin said...

thanks for sharing kak!
nanti buleh cubak juga
eh eh dah tukar profile pic ye! chomel :D

shasha said...

salam sis....dunno how i came across ur blog...and love reading ur posts... shasha @ shashahalim.blogspot.com

cutefroggie said...

huh!ni punya blog kena bagi award!!!!sgt2 berdisiplin makan ekkkk

Mulan said...

ohh yaa.. itu keju kasi grate kicik2 punya... baru la can evenly tabur nipis atas pizza/lasagna etc... tq tq teacher..

dolu2 i ada jgk disiplin guna sikit minyak etc.. sambal nasi lemak i kurang power konon, also kering takde shining2.. sbb less minyak.. but now i buang minyak lepas sambal tu masak..

tapi kalau masak kari, ok sikit sbb belajar dgn indian fren.. memang tak ada santan.. but now kids yg komplen pulak..

lemongrass said...

Zarin,
Ini untuk orang yg tgh berdiet mcm my hubby tu aje, hehehe ;-).
Saje je gatal tukar the profile pic to show off our new kurus faces, hahaha.

Shasha,
thanks for dropping by and enjoying the writings here :-).

Katak_Ayu,
my hubby still kena lose some more weight so I yg tukang masak, kenalah fikir mcm mana nak masak low cal food utk dia :-).

Mulan,
Memang itu trick dia nak bagi the cheese nampak sgt2 menggunung/banyak :-). Kalau tak, memang you can't get much from 25g of cheese tu.
I pun kalau buat indian kari, memang tak pakai santan dah. Tapi klu buat kari melayu or kari thai, still pakai santan lagi :-).

Sizuka Cikus said...

ada sape sape tau macam mana nak kuruskan perut yang dah buncit? tapi taknak kurangkan weight.. tenkiu!

Mamaboyz said...

lemongrass, kawan saya recommend your blog, bestlah sebab saya pun tengah alter all my cooking to lower the fats and sugar, will definitely try the mee goreng yang tak goreng tu :) and good idea for the cheese on pizza!

lemongrass said...

Sizuka cikus,
from what I read in every reliable book, memang takde cara khas nak kuruskan perut buncit. You kena lose yr weight, then the tummy will flatten naturally as well.

Mamaboyz,
Thanks ye sbb sudi singgah sini. Sometimes, memang susah jugak nak fikir on how to alter a recipe to make it low in cals. But I guess there's always the net nowadays to help us kan :-).

Yan said...

thanks so much for ur cheese grater trick tuh!! ur totally rite!! LOVE IT! lepas ni memang tak pandang ah yg depan tu, go side jek! hehe