Oh. My. Cod.

Recently most have my posts have been positive ones where I am swooning over my new found love for cauliflower and spaghetti squash.

Cooking new recipes, especially ones found online with no prior reviews can be a gamble. The odds have been in my favor for the last few creations. Until last night.

I had gone to Whole Foods with my BF and bought some fresh, wild caught cod that was on sale. Fish isn't really my thing...especially cooking it. I have finally mastered cooking salmon since starting the 17 Day Diet...and I really enjoy it. I must have been feeling pretty confident when I decided to buy that cod. I know its bland and not fishy, but that was the extent of my experience. I think I've only had it fried or breaded and baked. This was going to be interesting.

When I got home I went straight to Pinterest to search for recipes. I also checked Epicurious but did not have the time and ingredients for the dishes that sounded interesting. On Pinterest I found a few that looked good but they all seemed to have sugar in the recipe...a no-no on the 17DD. I finally found one that was a mixture of ginger, soy sauce, orange rind, oil, and honey. I swapped agave (apparently an ok substitute) for the honey. Mixed it up, poured it over the cod, covered with foil and baked.

I won't even show you a picture of what came out of the oven. It was a white, squishy plop surrounded by brown liquid.

Not knowing what to do, I threw it back into the oven and turned it to broil. That seemed to brown it up a bit and take away the pale, flabbiness of the dish. If I wanted to see pale flabbiness I can look in the mirror. I don't want to see it on my plate!

I dished it out and suffered through it...but it was pretty damn gross. And chewy. My husband said he liked it but I tend to doubt it. I gave him the rest of mine. I couldn't finish.

So the bad news is that the cod was an epic fail. Good news? My scale was down one and a half pounds this morning. Yucky cod = less dinner eaten = good loss in the morning. And that was about all the cod was good for.

Thats-a Nott-a Pasta!

I've made it to 40 without ever having tried spaghetti squash. I've had spaghetti, and I have had squash, but never thought the two needed to meet in the middle. Turning up my nose at the healthy version of pasta all of these years was a big mistake.

Spaghetti squash? It's REALLY good! Who knew?

Ok, all of the people that told me to try it knew. I'm a stubborn mule. I'll admit it.

Since the 17 Day Diet is going so well, and I have been surprising myself with enjoying some foods that I previously thought I hated (I'm talking to you, eggplant!), I thought I would give the spaghetti squash a go. My two BF's who are doing the diet with me have been enjoying it since they reached Cycle 2, and now that I am on Cycle 3 and need to have two starches a day I feel the need to explore my options.

I did a quick search online for ways to cook the squash. My friend suggested microwaving it because it was the easiest way to do it, but I wanted to see what roasting was like. She was right about it being difficult to cut in half...but I managed to do it. I scooped out the seeds and followed a recipe I found that looked pretty darn delicious.

Here is the squash ready to bake, with a little olive oil, salt and pepper:

It cooked for about 50 minutes at 400 degrees. It was supposed to cool for a half hour before scooping it into a bowl...but ain't nobody got time fo dat. I grabbed a potholder and held onto that sucker while scraping furiously with a fork to make spaghetti-like strands.

While that sat, I sauteed some garlic and onion in a skillet. I then added the squash and mixed together for a few minutes. After it was blended and heated through I removed from the pan. In a bowl I mixed it with 1/2 cup shredded parmesan, salt and pepper.

Holy Moly. This stuff was GOOD! I don't know how, but it tasted buttery despite the fact that no butter was involved. I even cut the cheese (insert fart joke here) to 1/2 cup from 3/4 to keep calories down and it was still absolutely delicious.

Consider me a convert. Hallelujah! All hail spaghetti squash!

Here's the recipe:
Roasted Spaghetti Squash With Parmesan

Soup-er Easy

I'm on a soup kick. I think I have been genetically programmed to get in front of a stock pot as soon as the cool weather comes in. I remember my mom used to make soups and stews whenever it snowed. I've taken it even further and have to have a new batch of soup in my fridge every week as soon as the leaves turn and it drops below 60 degrees.

Before the 17 Day Diet I supplemented my soup addiction with prepared foods. Either canned or from the big vats of soup at my local grocery. Now that I am hyper-aware that I need to stay away from processed/unhealthy foods as much as possible those are not an option for me. Besides...it is SUPER easy to make soup from scratch.

This weeks soup isn't going to win any major awards. I am not falling out of my chair like I did with the cauliflower pizza crust I made last week. But...it fits the bill. The soup actually gets better as it sits, so while I was not wowed by it as I tasted it from the pot, it got significantly better the next day.

The recipe is from the Williams Sonoma website. I did not tweak it too much. I left the potatoes out because I wanted to be able to eat it later in the day. No starches after 2 pm on this diet. I also left out the parsley...just because I hate parsley. I subbed asparagus for the green beans, and cut the beef into bite size pieces before cooking. The last thing I did was not purposeful, but my can of San Marzano tomatoes was more of a smooth puree rather than crushed. But that shouldn't make a difference. Just texturally smoother.

Gourmet? No. Healthy and easy? For sure!

Hearty (and Healthy) Beef and Vegetable Soup

You Don't Bring Me (Cauli)Flowers

Who knew that my favorite flower these days would end up being cauliflower?

It has become a staple in my rotation on the 17 Day Diet. I had no idea it was such a magical little vegetable!

Sure, I knew back from the Atkins Diet days you could mash it up with cream and salt and it was like mashed potato....but there's no butter or cream happening on the 17 DD.

What I found online was a veritable treasure trove of cauliflower recipes that were healthy and low calorie substitutes for some favorite foods. Missing fried rice? Guess what? Toss some raw cauliflower florets in the food processor for thirty pulses and it turns into a rice-like consistency. Throw it in the wok with some soy sauce, veggies and a raw egg and you come pretty close to getting your take-out fix without the carbs and grease!

Amongst all of the cauliflower-porn I found something I needed. Pizza crust. I needed pizza crust.

Every Friday night is pizza night in my house. We eat pizza and watch a movie...if the schedule allows.

I've been eating my salads, chicken, eggs, whatever while the boys are having their pizza each week. It doesn't bother me to the point of breaking down and having some...but it is one of my all time favorite foods. With the cauliflower crust recipe I had the potential of getting my pizza on again!

Check out this gorgeous specimen:

It looks amazing, right?

Guess what?

It WAS amazing!!!

A bit of a pain in the ass to make, but totally worth it. You see, when you put raw cauliflower in the Cuisinart it tends to get all over the place. Or maybe its just me. I'm not sure.

After pulsing, it gets cooked in the microwave and then has the life squeezed out of it so all of the water gets out. Mix it with egg, spices and cheese. I used fat free mozzarella and regular shredded Parmesan. Not the powdery kind in a can. That's just yucky.

The recipe suggests you use a rolling pin to roll out the crust between two sheets of wax paper...but you really can use your hands. No big deal.

The genius woman who created the recipe also has you making your own sauce. I was way too tired to deal with that...so I used jarred. I've found one at Whole Foods that I really like...365 brand organic marinara and it has no added sugar and low carbs.

The attached link has all of the instructions and photos. Make this. You WON'T be sorry. And you'll never look at a cauliflower the same way again!

Cauliflower Pizza With Spicy Tomato Basil Sauce