Proportional cooking

I realized as I was working through what I wanted to cook today how hard old habits are to break.  For years and years, I would try to put in very little meat in dish-or try to spread the meat as far as I could.  That doesn't work any longer-since each meal I eat is supposed to be half protein, following a regular casserole recipe just isn't going to work.

So, today I eyed the amount of pork loin I had, and started dumping veggies into the pot.....some onions, some white squash, some garlic, an apple......two tiny carrots, a small can of saurkraut.....until  hit what looked like equal portions.  Then I tossed in the slice loin, some ginger, himalayan sea salt and a ton of paprika.  It smells pretty good and I like everything I threw in the pot....

But it was so hard to STOP adding veggies.....yet, anything else I added should not be eaten (at least by me).

Does anyone else struggle with this or do you just cook as you always did, pull out the right amount of meat/veg and toss the rest?

I am still pre op and I dont cook, but what we have started doing is keeping our cooking focused on gettting protein.  we used to eat alot of protien free meals and now its not allowed.. every meal must be high protien and healthy.. ok maybe not every but most

The way I do it, since it's just me eating, I make enough for about a week's worth of leftovers. I try to put in what looks like a double meat portion of what I would normally put in, or put in more than one kind of protein, say meat and beans, that way when it all comes out, I don't have a pan or pot big enough to put in more veggies than I do meat. It works well.

I did cook in a smaller pot and that seemed to help.  When I was finished I had one serving and froze 4 for later, but it was really moist so it should heat up well and a little thai chili sauce will moisten it more if need be.

 

I haven't done any casserole type dishes yet. I've just been grilling or baking meat and making veggie side dishes. However, I am planning on doing some  of the *bite* recipes from http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/ She has several combo recipes that she mixes up and then bakes in a mini muffin pan. You can save several in a baggie in the freezer for later use! She has pizza bites and all kinds of goodies!
 

I didn't feel like cookin tonight so I'm grilling some salmon-I'd forgotten all about how easy it is to grill something......soaking the apple chips now and trying figure out a bit of ginger sauce to put on top.

I did eat a leftover hamburger patty for lunch-97% lean, put onions and a slice of cheese in the middle, more meat (thanks Rachel Ray).  I just nuked it (it was frozen) and topped with a little bit of pepper relish.  I don't like leftovers, and this wasn't bad at all.  I may get the hang of this yet.

I'm figuring out that even small quantities leave leftovers now, so I am cooking in very small quantities-same effort, same number of meals, just smaller.  DUH.

Like many single women, I find leftovers can be daunting and oppressive.  My other new trick, get ready to gasp....is if I don't LIKE the di****hrow it out or feed it to the dogs-why freeze it, thaw it and THEN not eat it?  Realizing I am not obligated to eat every scrap has freed me up to be more adventuresome and cook more.

It all sounds great to me! Hubby and I both love grilling.

I'm sure your pets love helping you out with the leftover problem. ; ) All of ours certainly do!