New year, new decade, new diet…

Well it’s almost here…2010!  I am very excited to put 2009 behind me and start the New Year and the new decade.  A fresh outlook and a fresh start on so many different aspects of my life – one of which is the diet.  I’m sure I am not alone on wanting to focus on eating better.  As usual the holidays have packed on the calories and I have not been as focused on hitting the gym.  Lord knows it will be bathing suit season before ya know it…so let’s get this started.

My main focus with my diet is to cut out the fat, increase the protein and still really enjoy what I’m eating.  A big goal is to stop eating lunch out every day at work and to reduce the intake of processed foods.  My calorie intake still needs to remain high to allow muscle growth, but with some planning there is a way to do both.

I found this amazing recipe in the September 2009 issue of Men’s Health.  Makes 4 servings and has 540 calories, 40g protein, 57g carbs and only 19g fat!  The taste is amazing and it’s actually one of my boyfriend’s favorite dishes that I make.

The Soba noodles are very important in this dish.  They are a Japanese noodle made from buckwheat.

Beef and Soba Salad

• 8 oz shiitake mushrooms
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 bunch asparagus
• 8 oz soba noodles
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1 clove garlic minced
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 ½ tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 lb flank steak
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• 2 bunches chopped scallions

Oven to 300 degrees

Toss shiitakes with olive oil, spread out evenly on a baking sheet and season with salt & pepper.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Once cool cut into strips.

Add sesame seeds to small dry skillet.  Do not add olive oil.  Heat them over medium high heat for a few minutes to toast.  Careful, they will burn easily.

In a large pot bring salted water to boil.

While waiting for the water to boil, season the flank steak with salt and pepper.  On a grill or grilling pan grill the flank steak, should take just about 4 minutes on each side.  Once grilled, wrap in aluminum foil and let rest for at least 10 minutes.  Then cut into strips – cut against the grain for tender pieces of meat.

If you have space on the grill/grill pan you can add the asparagus. If not, just grill after the steak.  Before adding to the grill, drizzle the asparagus with olive oil and season with salt & pepper.  When they are finished let them cool for a couple of minutes and then cut into 1 inch pieces.

By this point you water should be boiling.  Follow the instructions on the back of the Soba noodles.  Usually you only cook them for a couple of minutes.  Once they are cooked, drain and then toss asparagus and mushrooms with them.

In a bowl whisk ginger, garlic, soy sauce, honey and mustard.  Pour dressing over the soba noodles.  Top with beef, sesame seeds and scallions.

The dish also tastes great for the next couple of days.  I usually double the recipe and have plenty to eat on for a few days.

Gnocchi’s from heaven to hell…

I don’t know about you, but my life is usually way too busy to spend more than an hour on dinner during the week.  Eating out every night gets way to expensive and I am also really over the take out places nearby…not to mention all the extra fat they come with.  That extra fat creates more time needed at the gym, which cuts into time for everything else – it’s a vicious cycle!   I live in a great City with thousands of food choices, but alas I’m still not satisfied.  What’s a boy to do??

I had a good friend over for dinner and of course they want a “fancy” dish that they have heard about.  No time for an elaborate multi-hour masterpiece, so after a great deal of thought I came up with Filet of Boeuf with Bordelaise Sauce and Pommes de Terre Sautees – sounds fancy (amazing when you say something in French how fancy it can sound), but in reality it is pretty straight forward.  It’s just a nice steak with a brown sauce and a traditional French recipe for butter potatoes – might I say these lovely little potatoes are amazing – they taste like a french fry version of gnocchi when cooked right – little fried gnocchi’s from heaven is what they should be called!

So what sounds like a simple dish takes somewhat of a nose dive – I mucked up the potatoes!!  Lesson learned here: when you are cooking something that is somewhat time sensitive at certain parts of the cooking process DON’T decide that is the time that you should be trying to figure out your wireless internet connection so your guest can get online. My little fried gnocchi’s from heaven were my half “cajun” gnocchi’s from Dante’s Inferno. I was able to salvage them from the inferno, but then somehow over salted them!  Luckily the steak (I used tenderloin, yum) and bordelaise sauce were cooked perfectly.  The multiple glasses of cabernet sauvignon that I was able to get my friend to drink also helped the situation.  All in all it was a pretty good dinner and absolutely a great lesson.  Dinner was also ready in about 30 minutes and was a simple clean up! Bordelaise sauce recipes are easy to find online and most are similar – don’t let the bone marrow part scare you, you can skip it if you like.

I’m excited for tonight, it’s the neighborhood farmers market!  I’ll be making one of my absolute favorite chicken recipes, Jamie Oliver’s Fantastic Roast Chicken, slightly modified though, I don’t enjoy the potatoes that he includes with the recipe.  I usually will just chop up some carrots and onions and have the chicken finish roasting on those along with the celeriac.  Oh FYI, celeriac is more commonly called celery root here in the States and should be easily found in most markets.  It’s ugly, but adds a great layer of flavor.  I would suggest not skipping it!

I will also be grilling some fall veggies on the grill pan to accompany (fresh veggies that are chopped into 2 to 4 inch pieces and then lightly coated with good olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper). I will wrap it up with making a gravy from all of the drippings in the chicken pan.  Total cook time from prep to plate will take me about an hour and thirty minutes.  This is thirty minutes more than I want to spend, but the majority of the time the bird is roasting in the oven.  Since it’s one of my favorite dishes, it’s well worth the wait and I can get other things done during the roasting.  The chicken is so unbelievably juicy and delicious and grilled veggies are so dang tasty!

I’m working on more weeknight recipes that are easy to make, are fairly healthy and are done under an hour or so.  One of these will include the ever elusive perfect burger recipe.  I’ve came close a few times now, but I’m determined to make it even better.