Sunday Dinners

Usually on Sundays we go to my parent's for dinner. This can be a downfall in our healthy eating regime. Last night, for example, we had chicken wings, ribs, corn, potatoes, beans and broccoli. BUT if you stick to portion size, you can still enjoy everything you're being served. "I don't have my scale!" you might say. Worry not, your body comes with it's own built in scale to help you along. A portion size of anything is usually about the size of your fist. Easy enough right? Another great piece of advice is to fill up on veggies. Even if you have more than a portion size of veggies it will rarely affect your calorie count (this of course is assuming you're not piling on cheese sauce or butter and salt). Try and stay away from the starch ridden veggies like potatoes and corn, stick with the veggies with dark rich colors like broccoli, beans, carrots et. al. And eat your veggies first. The more veggies you eat, the more full you will feel, the less 'bad' stuff you'll have to put on top of it! Another great tip is to ask/use a smaller plate. When I look at a plate half full my brain says 'look you hardly ate anything, you must still be hungry!' (evil brain eh?) So if you use a smaller plate, the plate looks full and your brain says 'hm, that's better. Look at all that food!'. And last but not least, you don't make your host feel bad because you've had everything they served.

When I say 'bad' I don't really mean BAD because I don't believe anything is bad, in moderation. We work on a 80/20 scale in our house. Eat healthy 80% of the time and don't stress over the other 20%. Like I said before, we couldn't survive without our pizza nights, but the trick is to make it healthier which means making it yourself rather than buying it. When you make pizza at home you can control how much cheese goes on, you know exactly what went into the dough, and you can even make your own pizza sauce with veggies pureed in. The 'wings' are super easy and really, who wants to fight with the bone anyways!
Here's our pizza night recipes.

J's Pizza Dough
1 c warm water (just a little higher than your body temp)
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
3 c flour (you can use up to half whole wheat flour and not affect the texture of the dough)
2 1/4 tsp (or one package) of breadmaker yeast
If you have a bread maker, throw in all the ingredients in order above, set it on a dough setting, and let it go!
If you do not have a bread maker... go get one! (I kid) mix yeast water and sugar in a bowl and let it sit for 20 mins (until you see bubbles forming on the water). Mix all dry ingredients in a separate bowl, create a well. Gradually add your water mixture into the well and mix. Kneed your dough for about 5 mins. Cover and place it in a warm location to rise for about an hour. (Tip: place the dough in the oven with only the oven light on. This should give you just enough heat to make it warm, but not too much to kill the yeast.)

Eat, Shrink and Be Merry Wings
Bonless skinless chicken thighs (or de-bone and skin the chicken yourself at home)
One thigh will give you 2 wing pieces.
BBQ or Oven with a drip tray
Your favorite low fat BBQ sauce
Cut your thighs in half (oh if it were only that easy! lol) we prefer to cook them on the BBQ because you get added flavor from the fire and it leaves the outside crispy and the inside moist. You can also put them in the oven at a temp of about 400 C on a sheet that has a drip tray so all the fat melts away. When they are cooked, coat them in your favorite BBQ sauce (sometimes we use Frank's Red Hot Wing sauce) Serve!

Really me,
The Chef
Nik