Orange Spinach Salad

Today's lunch was absolutely wonderful. We enjoyed a citrus salad alongside Orange Roughy made up like it was the halibut from Herb the Halibut.

Orange Spinach Salad (73 calories)

2c spinach (13 calories)

1 orange (60 calories)

sprinkle onion granuals

sprinkle garlic granuals

vinegrette dressing (below)

Slice spinach and place in bowl. Cut orange with a knife, taking off all the white part. Save the rinds and set aside. Cut orange into quarters going the same direction as the segments, then turn and slice in half so you get small pieces. Put half of the orange into the spinach. The other half of the orange, squeeze over the spinach just a little bit before you add to the salad. Get the rinds and squeeze the juice from the cut out part of the orange over the top of that (not the oils from the rind, but the juice from the little left over parts in the white part of the orange).

Optional: Add 1T chopped sweet onion.

Liberally sprinkle onion & garlic powder over the salad, add dressing (below), toss with your hands and plate.

Vinegrette Dressing (14 calories)

1T balsamic vinegar (14 calories)

1T Apple Cider vinegar

1/8t chili powder

1/4 packet of powdered sweet leaf stevia

salt & pepper to taste

Mix together, then pour over the salad

Balsamic vinegar, generally speaking, is frowned upon in the world of HCG while on the VLCD portion. However, in comparing 1T of balsamic vinegar with the juice of 1 lemon, I found that they're similar in sugars and in calories.

A quick overview is:

1T balasmic = 14 calories, 2g sugars.

Juice of lemon = 12 calories, 1g sugars.

So, you could go ahead and delete the balsamic vinegar from the dressing recipe and just add a little more Apple Cider vinegar, sparing yourself the 14 calories, if you'd like!

Orange Creme de Licious

This afternoon's treat was just that - a real treat! See how beautiful it was?

Orange Creme de Licious (60 calories)

1 Orange (60 calories)

4 cinamon sticks

8 whole allspice

8 whole cloves

1 can Ginger Ale Zevia

2 drops vanilla creme stevia

1T milk

Peel orange. Get as much of the white off as you can. Slice into four rounds. Break four 4" cinamon sticks into large pieces, 8 whole allspice also broken into large pieces - so they're not completely pulverized, but they're open. To that, add 8 whole cloves. Pour them into a coffee filter (or guaze or muzlin), and form a spice envelope.

Put spice envelope into a deep bowl. Lay orange rounds over that. Cover all that with Zevia Ginger Ale. Weight it down with another bowl so the spices and oranges stay completely covered by the Zevia.

Let stand overnight to mull.

When it's done mulling, carefully pick out your orange slices. If you can get the spices out without them leaking, that's great, otherwise you'll have to strain the spices out of the Zevia. To the spiced ginger ale, add stevia, put on stove and reduce some. Add ground ginger (to taste), reduce more, then pour over the orange slices.

Garnish with a cinnamon stick and orange zest for a real show stopper!

Chef's Notes: For pretty pictures, I strained out the "dregs" of spices from the reduction. It's not strictly necessary, but does make it look better!

Orange Ginger Chicken

Lunch today was a different sort of dish - variety is the spice of life, after all! I really like pounding the meat and putting it in the ramekin, as it makes the meat more able to soak up the flavors as well as makes it more tender. I also used the grissini stick in this recipe and it gave a nice texture to it.

Orange Ginger Chicken (190 calories)

1 orange (60 calories)

1/4t fresh ground ginger (up to 1/2t, depending on your taste)

1 or 2 drops stevia

1T stone ground mustard (Plochman's)

1T soy sauce

Orange zest

1/4t onion powder

salt & pepper to taste

1 grissini bread stick, crushed into a powder (20 calories)

100g chicken (110 calories)

Cut both the top and bottom of the orange off so there's about an inch left of the orange inside both

ends. With the middle part of the orange, slice it into 4 pieces. It should cut the orange so it looks like the spokes of a wheel.

Take the two ends of the orange and squeeze the juice into a small bowl. Add ginger, stevia, mustard, and soy sauce to the juice of the orange. If there's not enough juice to make a runny sort of paste, then add a little water.

Pound chicken breast out so it's thin.

In a separate bowl, add zest, onion powder, salt, pepper, and grissini. Mix together.

In ramekin, put two slices of the orange, lay chicken on top of that, cover with mustard mixture, pour bread stick mixture over that, then top with the last two slices of orange.

Cover with foil and chill for 1 hour in frig.

Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes with foil on.

Orange Steak

Today, I'm not feeling all that well, so I'm going to post a something I've been working on. So it's really a jumping off point still, but I hope it makes up for my lack of enthusiasm about anything food right now.

Orange BBQ Sauce

1/4t celery seed

1T orange juice

1/4t onion powder

1/4t garlic powder

1/4 tomato paste

1t ACV

3 drops stevia

2 drops liquid smoke

salt & pepper to taste

Add all ingredients and mix thoroghly.

Orange Steak (140 calories)

100g steak (140 calories)

Orange peel, in one piece if possible!

BBQ sauce (above)

salt & pepper to taste

In 8" square of foil, center orange rind and place steak inside it, cover meat with BBQ sauce and place in toaster oven at 350* for 1 hour to make sure the flavors are mingled in with the meat.

Gelled Fruit (a Jell-O knock off)

I got ambitious the other day, not to mention bored of the same old same old baked apples for desert. So, I started hunting for some different things I could do with what I'm allowed on this protocol.

Since we have oranges, raspberries, strawberries, and grapefruit, I couldn't think of a single reason why I should refrain from adding some Knox Gelatin to some water and tossing the fruit in with it, sweeten it up with some stevia and set it in the frig to chill out. Here's what my first jelled fruit recipe experiment was:

DON'T MAKE THIS JUST LIKE THIS RECIPE SAYS. IT DIDN'T TURN OUT RIGHT! I POST IT HERE AS A JUMPING POINT FOR OTHER EXPERIMENTERS ONLY!!

Gelled Fruit

Allowed amount of fruit

1 package Knox Gelatin

16-20 drops of stevia

Make the gelatin, according the the directions, squish 1/4 of the fruit so it's pulpy juice and add to the gelatin. Add stevia, chill.

It turns out that this is not as pleasant as I thought it would be. It tasted like orange flavored gelled stevia. I think, next time I give it a shot, I'll go ahead and mash all the fruit, add only 3/4 of the water, and about half the stevia. When I do that, I'll post results again. If you decide to alter it and come up with a tasty recipe, please share in the comments section!

Supper Menu

Tonight, we're having Roast. I've decided to go for the cucumber thing again (I seriously love cucumbers), while Mom is doing steamed broccoli. Normally, a roast dinner includes baked potatoes, onions, cooked carrots, and some sort of sweet jelly stuff Mom makes and cans.

Roast (150 calories)

100g roast

salt and pepper to taste

1 T Braggs' Liquid Aminos

1/2 t rosemary

1/2 t garlic (or more if you like)

sprig of fresh basil

Create a rub with rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper. In an 8" (or so) square of foil, rub the seasonings onto the roast. Pour Braggs' over the meat, lay basil on top and fold foil closed. Put in toaster oven at 350* until the meat is as you prefer.

3 cups Cucumbers ( 45 calories)

Grissini Breadstick (20 calories) <--found at Safeway in both Sea Salt and Parmeasean flavors!

1/2 orange (30 calories)

That puts me precisely at 500 calories for the day.

Everyone who's done a 500 calorie diet before kept telling me this was going to be so hard. I just don't agree. This is, especially after the very prominent memory of those loading days, wonderful!!