If There's Going to Be a Food Fight, Don't Make Marinara Sauce
Last night I had my leftist book club over for dinner and discussion. I made a delicious CR friendly soup and a CR friendly marinara sauce that could go over either steamed veggies for the CR or pasta for the non. The soup was made of: two cans of crushed plum tomatoes, one 8 oz package of neufchatel cheese, and 1 cup of non-fat plain yogurt, the high calcium brand that I buy. The entire recipe had 1076 calories in it, and I split it into eight small cup servings, each of them 154.5 calories. It is so rich and creamy that it seems rather decadent, and the assembled crowd of leftists loved it.
Then I made up a marinara out of 2 cans crushed tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 cup red wine, 1 small yellow onion sauteed in 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 can of roasted red peppers packed in water, not oil (usually I roast my own, but my mom had gotten three jars on sale at BJ's -- yes, I used a bottle opener to open the jar), a dash of sea salt, a few grinds of fresh pepper, and a dash of dried oregano. Total calories on the entire batch of sauce: 975. Very yummy. I just put out dishes of steamed broccoli, yellow squash, and green peppers, as well as a collander of pasta, and let people assemble their own dishes. VLC and I ate steamed veggies with sauce, the rest ate both steamed veggies and pasta. The crowd went wild. Food very well received.
Alas, that wasn't all the crowd went wild about. Half the people had brought red wine, and as the night wore on and the leftists refilled their glasses, the arguments got rather heated. At one point, I feared for my white carpet when it seemed possible that a food fight might break out. I regret to report that I drank at least two glasses of wine, maybe more, and while I don't think this negatively effected my political rhetoric, it didn't help my calories for the day! All I had eaten up to that point was a cup of cottage cheese, 160 calories, 40% of the RDA of calcium, 24 g protein, no fat. There was only 54 g protein total in the soup, so my 1/8 would have been 6.75 g. The marinara with veggies was great on vitamins A and C, but low on protein, and the 120 fat calories in the olive oil was divided amongst 8 people. All in all, the day was high in carbs, low protein.
I swear, sometimes I really wonder how long it's going to take me to get it. I was full on Sunday morning from eating too much the night before at a Cuban place in NYC, then I spent the entire morning writing, didn't eat anything till about 1 pm, when I ate a cup of cottage cheese (which isn't bad nutritionally but it was bad to skip breakfast) so then I'm starving by the time dinner guests arrive, and I eat too high carb, too low protein, whine whine whine. I SHOULD KNOW BETTER BY NOW! I get that horrible hungry feeling, the "I'm just as likely to eat the guests as serve them dinner," hungry feeling that is blood sugar out of whack and not in a fun ketosis type of way. Oh, and did I mention that I ate two slices of the pumpkin pie that one of the guests brought? They were small slices, but still, one would have sufficed, but I was so screwed up from my not eating all day pattern of the last two days that I didn't say no.
And of course, I woke up this morning not hungry. I was desperate to get to the office early early early to write, so I ran out the door without breakfast (I did shower, dress, and brush my teeth, as well as feed the cats and listen to Suzanne Vega's "Caramel" five times in the process.) I had a great lunch though: 1 cup of cottage cheese with a little tabasco on top, plus the steamed broccoli, peppers and squash in marinara. I think my co-workers were envious of my beautiful dish. Haha! I do love to cook. Love love love to cook. Love to have zillions of friends over for dinner. Anyway, I am feeling very stuffed now and need to eat little for dinner so that I can reset and be hungry for breakfast and get on with my CRON life. Brewers yeast soup tonight, more writing in my head, and snuggling up with some de Grey articles, a four ounce glass of red wine, and a very soft cat.
Then I made up a marinara out of 2 cans crushed tomatoes, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 cup red wine, 1 small yellow onion sauteed in 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 can of roasted red peppers packed in water, not oil (usually I roast my own, but my mom had gotten three jars on sale at BJ's -- yes, I used a bottle opener to open the jar), a dash of sea salt, a few grinds of fresh pepper, and a dash of dried oregano. Total calories on the entire batch of sauce: 975. Very yummy. I just put out dishes of steamed broccoli, yellow squash, and green peppers, as well as a collander of pasta, and let people assemble their own dishes. VLC and I ate steamed veggies with sauce, the rest ate both steamed veggies and pasta. The crowd went wild. Food very well received.
Alas, that wasn't all the crowd went wild about. Half the people had brought red wine, and as the night wore on and the leftists refilled their glasses, the arguments got rather heated. At one point, I feared for my white carpet when it seemed possible that a food fight might break out. I regret to report that I drank at least two glasses of wine, maybe more, and while I don't think this negatively effected my political rhetoric, it didn't help my calories for the day! All I had eaten up to that point was a cup of cottage cheese, 160 calories, 40% of the RDA of calcium, 24 g protein, no fat. There was only 54 g protein total in the soup, so my 1/8 would have been 6.75 g. The marinara with veggies was great on vitamins A and C, but low on protein, and the 120 fat calories in the olive oil was divided amongst 8 people. All in all, the day was high in carbs, low protein.
I swear, sometimes I really wonder how long it's going to take me to get it. I was full on Sunday morning from eating too much the night before at a Cuban place in NYC, then I spent the entire morning writing, didn't eat anything till about 1 pm, when I ate a cup of cottage cheese (which isn't bad nutritionally but it was bad to skip breakfast) so then I'm starving by the time dinner guests arrive, and I eat too high carb, too low protein, whine whine whine. I SHOULD KNOW BETTER BY NOW! I get that horrible hungry feeling, the "I'm just as likely to eat the guests as serve them dinner," hungry feeling that is blood sugar out of whack and not in a fun ketosis type of way. Oh, and did I mention that I ate two slices of the pumpkin pie that one of the guests brought? They were small slices, but still, one would have sufficed, but I was so screwed up from my not eating all day pattern of the last two days that I didn't say no.
And of course, I woke up this morning not hungry. I was desperate to get to the office early early early to write, so I ran out the door without breakfast (I did shower, dress, and brush my teeth, as well as feed the cats and listen to Suzanne Vega's "Caramel" five times in the process.) I had a great lunch though: 1 cup of cottage cheese with a little tabasco on top, plus the steamed broccoli, peppers and squash in marinara. I think my co-workers were envious of my beautiful dish. Haha! I do love to cook. Love love love to cook. Love to have zillions of friends over for dinner. Anyway, I am feeling very stuffed now and need to eat little for dinner so that I can reset and be hungry for breakfast and get on with my CRON life. Brewers yeast soup tonight, more writing in my head, and snuggling up with some de Grey articles, a four ounce glass of red wine, and a very soft cat.
posted by April @ 1:01 PM
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