back in mid March, we had some great weather, at least for Toronto...been enjoying my walks to and from work without the nasty bitter cold wind from the lake...this weather was giving me the itch to grill...a good friend had been pushing me to create a BBQ sauce and, since i was not working at my part-time job on Sunday, i decided to try and create a sauce...so i grabbed my Weber cookbook looking for spice rubs and BBQ sauces...having found one, i went to the store looking for substitute items that contained less sodium and fat that was in the recipe...one item i found was a reduced sodium and no fat ketchup...the other item is liquid smoke; i love a smoky BBQ sauce and wanted to know the liquid smoke's nutritional value; you can read about it here.
fear not, this sauce was wonderfully flavorful and not runny or too thick...it made for a beautiful sauce that covered the meat, in this case chicken, nicely...it's low in fat and sodium with wonderful flavour:
2 cups of the low sodium ketchup (see link above)
2 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Tomato paste
1 shallot diced
4 garlic cloves minced (this may seem like a lot of garlic, but it adds wonderful flavour)
1/4 cup of liquid smoke
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp Brown Sugar or 1/4 cup of Molasses
3 tbsp Smoked Paprika
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Allspice
1 tsp Thyme
1 tbsp Onion Powder
1. in a 3 quart sauce pan, saute the shallots in the olive oil for appr. 5 minutes or until translucent...then add garlic cooking until fragrant.
2. add all of the dry spices, sauteing for appr. 2 minutes...then add the tomato paste, stirring to incorporate the paste into the ingredients in the pan.
3. stir in the ketchup, liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce, simmer for 1 minute...add in the brown sugar or if using, molasses.
4. slowly simmer over a low heat, the longer the better as the ingredients will make a wonderful BBQ sauce the longer it simmers.
5. after a few hours, use on ribs, chicken, steaks you are cooking on the grill.
if you make this sauce, please let me know how it comes out...i had to really think about quantities as i rarely do when creating a dish...thanks all.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Let's Get Low
We people, i feel like i have accomplished part of my goals: from my last several visits with the doctor, my blood pressure has remained at normal levels, yeah...and my last blood tests has revealed that my cholesterol level is 3.7 which is good according to the doctor...however, how much of this lowering is a direct result of changing my eating habits...
Medical will take some of the luster off this lowering as i believe the combination with controlling my diet has played with this lowing...however, i am not sure of the percentages can be attributed to each...i would like to think that changing the diet had more to do with it...i have limited my intake of sodium to less than the recommended amounts; as i mentioned previously, some sodium is needed for the body...also, i have drastically reduced my fat intake to well below 10 grams per day.
The part i have not been able to relinquish is the medication...i believe this will take an even more drastic endeavour such as, shall i dare mention, "exercise"...gasp, i uttered the "E" word...since the weather has been relatively been - come on summer - i have been walking more, that is to and from work...next month will see me dust off the bike which has not been used in 3 years, yikes!
I know i promised to provide recipes; however, when i do create them, i never remember to take a picture of the dishes...such as last night dinner, which had diced chicken, red pepper, diced shallot, minced garlic and in olive oil, with whole parsley leaves added at the end of cooking, along with Catelli Smart pasta...made for a nice presentation and colour in our pasta bowls...no salt was added and it was tasty...i also don't have the nutritional information to give you on the calories, grams of fat (however, this you can get from looking at a bottle of olive oil as this was the only fat used which is a good fat) or grams of sodium, which only came from the chicken (yes, chicken has salt water solution injected into them...read about it here and here)
Medical will take some of the luster off this lowering as i believe the combination with controlling my diet has played with this lowing...however, i am not sure of the percentages can be attributed to each...i would like to think that changing the diet had more to do with it...i have limited my intake of sodium to less than the recommended amounts; as i mentioned previously, some sodium is needed for the body...also, i have drastically reduced my fat intake to well below 10 grams per day.
The part i have not been able to relinquish is the medication...i believe this will take an even more drastic endeavour such as, shall i dare mention, "exercise"...gasp, i uttered the "E" word...since the weather has been relatively been - come on summer - i have been walking more, that is to and from work...next month will see me dust off the bike which has not been used in 3 years, yikes!
I know i promised to provide recipes; however, when i do create them, i never remember to take a picture of the dishes...such as last night dinner, which had diced chicken, red pepper, diced shallot, minced garlic and in olive oil, with whole parsley leaves added at the end of cooking, along with Catelli Smart pasta...made for a nice presentation and colour in our pasta bowls...no salt was added and it was tasty...i also don't have the nutritional information to give you on the calories, grams of fat (however, this you can get from looking at a bottle of olive oil as this was the only fat used which is a good fat) or grams of sodium, which only came from the chicken (yes, chicken has salt water solution injected into them...read about it here and here)
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