Bored at Home

You know those days that you stay at home most of them day for some reason? Well, I personally hate those days. I try as much as I can not to stay at home because when I’m at home with not much to do, I go and open the fridge every 5 minutes. I sometimes don’t even take anything out of the fridge, but I still open it and see what’s in it. Most of the times, though, I unconsciously grab myself a snack. Then, all of the sudden I realized that I’ve been snacking all day without really being hungry – just bored. This is definitely not good when you’re trying to lose weight. I know some people read, other people knit as a way to keep your mind of food. For me, none of those options work. I love being in the kitchen. So instead of reading or knitting, I make tea. After all, tea is calorie-free and all that hot water keeps me from feeling hungry too. Plus, tea takes a while to drink since it is a hot drink. You sort of have to wait a bit for it cool down or drink it really slowly. So, tea keeps me away from snacking. Well, I guess you could call tea a snack but at least it has no calories.

To make it more interesting, I make the tea from scratch instead of using store-bought tea bags. I particularly like chai tea. Since chai tea has so many spices, making it also keeps me entertained for a while. Here’s the recipe I use:

10 whole coriander seeds
10 cardamom pods
3 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of black tea (or 2 bags)
2 cups of skim or 1% milk

1. Take the cardamom seeds out of the pod.
2. Using a mortar, lightly crush the coriander and cardamom seeds. If you don’t have a mortar, you can crush them using the bottom of a glass.
3. Wrap the crushed seeds, cloves and the black tea in a piece of cheesecloth. If you don’t have cheesecloth at home, you can use a coffee filter. Also, if you’re using black tea bags, you don’t need to put the inside the cheesecloth or coffee filter – just wrap the crushed seeds and the cloves. Set this homemade tea bag aside.
4. Bring milk close to a boil.
5. To the milk, add the cinnamon stick and the homemade tea bag (plus the black tea bags, if applicable).
6. Remove from heat and let it stand for 5 minutes.
7. You can add some Splenda if you like.

You can also make this chai tea with water instead of milk. I like to use milk because that way I get some calcium in for the day. I use skim milk, though, to keep it low-calorie. But, this recipe turns out just as good if you were to use water instead of milk. The important thing here is the spices. You’ll be surprised at how good they smell when you’re crushing them. Plus, they have some antioxidants. 

Low Fat Cooking

I was looking through the comments you have been leaving in some of my previous post and came across this very interesting one concerning fat-free broths. So, I thought that it might be a good idea to address the subject in a bit more detail. As a matter of fact, I want to share with you all a few other tricks to help you lower the fat content of your meals. Fat is a very important macronutrient in our diets, but it does contain a lot of calories. Just so you know, one gram of fat has 9 calories! Compared to carbohydrates and proteins that only have around 4 calories per gram, fat has relatively a lot of calories. This is why, when losing weight, we want to limit our fat intake quite a bit since we are only allowed so many calories a day. A way of reducing fat intake is to cook with less fat, of course. Here are some tricks you can use in the kitchen:

1. Use low-fat sour cream or yogurt instead of regular sour cream
2. Chose cheeses that are lower in fat or fat-free. Use low-fat cream cheese instead of mascarpone (You’d be surprised at just how many calories mascarpone has)
3. Use evaporated milk instead of cream and choose milk that is lower in fat (skim or 1%)
4. Choose lower fat or leaner cuts of meat
5. Food may be steamed in a steam basket or inside a foil or parchment package avoiding the need for added fat to prevent sticking
6. Sauteeing can be done in a non-stick saucepan with a bit of oil or using broth instead
7. Baking, broiling and grilling do not require additional fat
8. Allow for fat to drip away from food
9. Fat can be removed from broths by refrigerating them and then removing the gelatinized fat on top. You can also use a gravy strainer (see picture) to get the broth at the bottom without getting the fat at the top and, consequently, getting a low-fat broth. If you want a fat-free broth, make sure to remove all the fat on top as well as the tiny chunks that may accumulate at the bottom. 
10. When baking, butter can be replaced by 65% of its volume as fruit puree. For example, if the recipe is calling for 100 grams of butter, you could use 65 grams of applesauce to replace those 100 grams of butter. However, try to keep some of the butter as part of the recipe so that your baked good does not end up too soggy. 
11. Non-stick utensils will remove the need to add fat to prevent sticking
12. Use spray-on oils when possible
13. When having eggs, have one whole egg and one egg white instead of two whole eggs
14. If you use oil in cooking, measure it. When you measure it, you are more aware of how much oil you’re actually using and this makes you unconsciously use less.

You can reduce the fat content of you meals by a great deal just by following these recommendations. Hope you find them helpful. And, keep those comments coming. I truly enjoy reading them.