RECIPE SWAP

We all need and want variety in our menus, so I thought it would be a good idea to share some yummy recipes to help one another.  I made a chili the other night and it was really good since I have to eat very soft mushy things right now. It's good for any post-op and its low in fat for the pre-ops.                                             TURKEY CHILI 1 lb ground turkey 1/2 chopped onion Brown this in a tablespoon of olive oil till meat is no longer pink. Add one package of taco seasoning mix and 1/3 cup water Add 1 large can of Campbells Tomato Soup and 2/3 of the can filled with water Add one 15 oz can of kidney beans Stir together and cook to thicken over Medium heat. Add to taste chili powder and  crushed red pepper Tastes even better reheated!! Enjoy!    Jeanine Anyone got any Christmas cookie recipes made with Splenda??

Homemade turkey chili is my fallback food! When I'm not feeling good and don't know what to eat I always go for chili, it's the one thing that's never made me sick.

We make a huge pot every other week or so and I freeze it in individual containers for lunches, had some today!  Yummy!

I've been living on the following quite often lately - it might not be cleared for you yet post-op but its cheap fast and tasty. I boil one bag of boil in bag brown rice.  I then sautee 1/4 onion, 1 sliced jalepeno (optional and maybe slice large enough to pick out if hot food bothers you), and 1/2 chopped bell pepper in 1 tsp or so olive oil. Add 2 tyson pre-roasted chicken breasts (cubed) - nice and moist, found in the meat section usually, 1/2 - 1 tsp tomato bouillon, 1 can of rotel with lime (minus most of the liquid), and one can of rinsed pinto beans.  Add rice and heat through. I serve with avocado and lime wedges - and its like chicken spanish rice easy on the rice.  Its moist and easy to eat, and it serves both of us easily with leftovers.  Lots of protein and fiber. I also like to make a big pot of chili and freeze small portions, like Jan.  I add a ton of veggies and beans - the meat still seems weird, as I was raised on vegan chili.  I've made it with a turkey/ground beef combo, and also just turkey.  I prefer it with the beef or a ground steak is even leaner.

You're right...I can't have rice, pasta or steak for a longgggggggggggg time!  Sounds yummy though!

Rice bothers some people more than others - I don't have a problem with a little of it but I have pretty much always only eaten brown rice, and I don't think it expands as much in the tummy.  This is so heavy on the chicken and veggies though, that there really isn't all that much rice to it.  Maybe in a few months you can try it.  I don't eat pasta yet, mainly because its a trigger food, but when I do it'll prolly be a healthier whole grain pasta or dreamfields.  I don't plan to straight-up outlaw anything I'd make at home but some fast foods are outlawed.  I'm trying for the everything in moderation mentality.  We'll see how it goes :)

You are on the right mental track.  Can you imagine thinking this way a year ago????  LOL  I still say we all need the big loss for the motivation and knowing it will continue to come off is truly inspiring.  Before WLS , I too was eating the whole wheat pastas. DH is Italian and he is trying to lose some weight too...he's dropped about 22 lbs cuz I'mnot cooking anymore LOL.  He needs to lose maybe another 25.  HUGS     Jeanine

Can you all tell me how you figure out how much protein you are eating when you eat recipes like these? I can tell if I get chili from Wendy's because I can look it up. I made beef stew the other day and had to pick out and weigh the beef chunks. What a pain!! I went to Olive Garden and had to guess how much the little pieces of chicken might have weighed. I have no clue if I am doing this right without a scale or if something isn't a whole piece. -feeling dumb, and sick of plain food, Julie

I'm with ya Julie.  I am so new to this, I have no idea how to count the protein grams in the food.  I can read labels and guesstimate 1/2 portion etc., but beyond that, I'm lost too.  Since the food plan I am on at this point is practically nothing but protein, I am just eating what I can and hoping I get enough.  I have to get some protein powder from my doctor's office to sprinkle in food that is tasteless, but adds protein.  Do you take any supplements or rely on food only?  I'm still quite a newbie to figure this all out, so hopefully some of the further out post ops can help with this dillema.      HUGS  Jeanine

I use a high protein lactose free skim milk that is available here to get most of my protein - I get 42 oz of protein from 2 (12oz) glasses of milk each day, and I TRY to drink them each day, that way I know I'm most of the way to my protein goal.  I definitely make sure to get at least 12 oz a day for the 21g protein.  Then I just eat my meat first, or meat only.  Today for lunch I had about 1/4-1/3 of a medium sized chicken breast with swiss cheese melted on it.  Between that and the two glasses of milk I'm pretty much sure I got the protein in before dinner - then for dinner I had about 1/2 of the inside of a quiche, and a small green salad - egg = protein, I'm good for the day.  Estimating serving size and calories and everything is hard sometimes.  For example, in my calorieking log I entered half of the quiche (from mimi's cafe) - but that includes the crust and I didn't eat the crust, so technically the carbs are higher than I ate.  I just live with it and don't get too anal.  I try to keep my carb grams low (preferably under 50, but I'll go as high as 100 some days on the log because of things like the pie crust on the quiche that elevate the numbers).  I aim for 80g protein per day but make sure to get at least 60.  That's not too hard now but it was hard at first.  Finding that milk was a lifesaver because none of the protein supplements are remotely tolerable to me now.  I don'****ch my fat too much yet, but I try to make sure it doesn't go over about 35% of my daily calories.  If it does, its usually avocado or olive oil that does it... or I ate nuts or flax seed.  Those are all healthy fats anyway.  I think if I tried to be extremely accurate and anal about this I'd go crazy.  I'm just keeping track for general purposes and just want a loose estimate of where I'm at.  It also helps me from snacking if I have to enter everything in to the log - first of all its a pain to enter stuff - you have to figure out how much you actually ate and all of that.  Second, I feel bad if I see how much my caloric intake went up from snacking. 

Hi Jeanine, Up until this point I was weighing or measuring every thing I ate. My meals were very simple. Now things are getting more complicated, and I am eating out. Yesterday I saw my new NUT, and she had some good advice. First, about the stews: You can pull out the meat and weigh it separately, but since that is a bit obsessive, she suggested just dividing the entire amount used to make the recipe into the amount of servings, or even better, look in the bowl and see if the amount of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. If so, you know you have about 3oz. Then, if you added some unflavored protein powder to the whole recipe, you would be sure you had gotten more than you needed, and would just pee out any excess. Second, about soups: consider most to be 1/3 meat, 1/3 veg, 1/3 liquid. Hope that helps. -Julie