Summer Squash Zucchini Stir-Fry

I have been having cravings for veggies lately because I feel heavier...I need to cut down on fats and meat, and instead stuff myself up with more fiber and vitamins.

If I were in the Philippines and someone asked me what this was, I would have answered, "ginisang gulay" or "lutong bahala na," but I am posting it anyway in my blog, with a more appropriate name. Actually, both summer squash and zucchini are categorzed into "summer squash," in contrast with winter squash, where butternut squash (and other hardy varieties) would fall into, the kinds that keep good in the pantry. This is so easy and good, even my kids love it. I just got about an ounce of meat thinly sliced off a frozen steak which I later on cooked as bistek tagalog (which reminds me, I have not posted a recipe here for bistek!).

Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
1-2 oz thinly sliced beef (or whatever meat or seafood; added for flavor) - optional
1 stalk celery, cut in half longitudinally then cut into small cubes
1/2 each of red and green bell peppers (I used frozen ones), diced
1 zucchini, cut in wedges
1 summer squash, cut in wedges (the longitudinal one like zucchini, but you may want to use the sunburst?-like type)
3 tbsp Kikkoman stir-fry sauce (or to taste)
dash of pepper

Instructions
Heat wok on medium for about 5 minutes. Add butter until clarified. Stir-fry beef for 1 minute. Add celery and bell peppers and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add the summer squash and zucchini. Stir fry for bout 2-3 minutes. Add stir-fry sauce and stir. Season with pepper.

Serve on plain rice.

Adobong Asparagus

I have no easy access to kangkong (water spinach) where I am now. But I do have a craving for this vegetarian recipe from time to time, especially when I feel I have too much baggage around my waistline, hehe...

So one day I cooked adobong asparagus for lunch. One bunch of asparagus was too much for lunch. So I had leftovers which my older son saw and tasted as soon as he got home. He told me, "This is good, Ma! It tastes familiar." I reminded him about adobong kangkong which we used to have back in the Philippines. "O, now I remember!" was his reply.

It was sooo good, in fact, that I probably will not anymore buy kangkong from a store two-hour drive away from me for the purposes of satisfying my craving for this veggie dish.

UPDATE as of 10-07-09:
This dish is well-loved now by at least two readers, and one of them, Sharon, even blogged about it (and about me -- thanks for the heaps of praises, Sharon!). Sharon's blog also has some very interesting baking recipes, although she says she is a newbie (I'd say she does great in baking, even better than I do, but she does not seem to believe that she is that good already). She has another blog which focuses on French to English translation (and actually works as F-->E translator). Her posts are very informative, and it is very apparent how erudite she is!

Ingredients: (all approximations)
1 bunch asparagus(sorry I forgot to take the weight, about the diameter of the circle you form when joining your two thumbs and middle fingers)
2 tbsp oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup vinegar
freshly milled pepper to taste
pinch of salt

Instructions:
Heat wok at medium setting for about 5 minutes while you prepare garlic and asparagus. Cut off the tips of asparagus about 3 inches, then chop the rest at 2-3 cm intervals down to the tough parts. Discard the tough parts of stems. Rinse well under cold water and let drain.
Heat oil for about 30 seconds and sautee garlic until light brown. Add asparagus and stir-fry about 3 minutes. Transfer veggies in a bowl/platter and keep warm. Pour soy sauce and vinegar to the wok and let simmer on low heat for about 5 minutes untouched. Place back the veggies into the pan carefully on top of the soy sauce-vingear without stirring. Sprinkle the freshly milled black pepper on top and add a pinch of salt. Let simmer uncovered without stirring for 3 minutes. Finally stir some more and turn off heat.

Serve with plain rice. Enjoy as is if you are trying to lose weight, or enjoy with a good protein source.

Ginisang Ampalaya (Sauteed Bittermelon) with Eggs

From ginisang ampalaya (sauteed bittermelon) with egg

Not a lot of people like eating ampalaya. I myself started not liking it, but I acquired the taste for it as I grew older. Now I love it, especially when I have finally discovered to get rid of most of the bitter taste, and come up with crunchy slices of ampalaya.

As a side note, it is a common knowledge among Filipinos that ampalaya is one of the natural remedies for lowering blood sugars (in other words, anti-diabetic).

I used to eat this every morning when I wanted to lose weight (or I would alternate it with adobong kangkong or ginataang puso ng saging or adobong labong). Cooked only with eggs as its protein source, I would enjoy it with freshly cooked plain rice. I can eat a whole ampalaya in two meals cooked this way. It's a great way to slim down.

Ingredients:
1 ampalaya, prepared as depicted in the slideshow
salt (for ampalaya)
3 tbsp oil for sauteeing
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1-3 medium tomatoes (as you prefer)
2 eggs, beaten slightly with 1/4 cup water, let stand
1/2 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
ground basil

Instructions:

Prepare amapalaya as shown above. While sitting with the salt on, start slicing the other veggies. Beat eggs and add the water. Let sit.
After about 5 minutes, while heating up the pan, rinse and wring out excess fluid from ampalaya using a layer of cheesecloth.
Sautee garlic, onion, then tomatoes. Add the ampalaya and cook for 2 minutes. Add chicken stock. and let boil. Set veggies at one side of the pan and pour the beaten eggs onto the boiling stock, let cook untouched. Then stir together again for further 3 minutes or until ampalaya is cooked but still crunchy. Season with ground basil and salt and pepper.

Total Caloric Requirement and Food Intake

During my early months of blogging, I made a very loooooong post on calculating Total Caloric Requirement and "promised" to tackle its application to actual food intake on the next "nutrition" post, but I totally forgot about that supposed next post...

well, it would have been another looooong post including food exchanges and choosing foods to include in your menu so you will have your targeted caloric intake.

But while I was working as an MT, I have stumbled upon a lot of medical-related websites from fitness to neurology.

I have found out the quickest way to do those without you really doing the calculating...

Calculating your BMR the long and painful way is to go to my blogpost here. Calculating it the easy way is by using a free web-based TCR calculator. While my post calculated my TCR as 1800 cal, the calculator is pretty close at 1746.62 cal per day based on my acitvity level. My results were as follows:

1343.55 calories per day is your Basal Caloric Rate. This is:
no more then 44.78 grams of fat (30%) for your Basal Caloric Rate
50.38 grams of protein (15%) for your Basal Caloric Rate
184.74 grams of carbohydrate (55%) for your Basal Caloric Rate

1746.62 calories per day recommended for your Active Caloric Rate. This is:
no more then 58.22 grams of fat (30%) for your Active Caloric Rate
65.50 grams of protein (15%) for your Active Caloric Rate
240.16 grams of carbohydrate (55%) for your Active Caloric Rate

No less then 1200 calories per day recommended for safe consistent Weight Loss. This is:
no more then 40.00 grams of fat (30%) for your Weight Loss Caloric Rate
45.00 grams of protein (15%) for your Weight Loss Caloric Rate
165.00 grams of carbohydrate (55%) for your Weight Loss Caloric Rate

At this safe consistent Weight Loss Caloric Rate,
you will lose 1 pound every 24.38 Days

As it shows, it gives you a target caloric intake per day for consistent and safe weight loss.

Someone recently asked me how this relates to food intake, and that query prompted this post.

Okay, to translate that TCR to food intake, we are to convert it to protein, fats, and carbohydrate mainly (other nutrients do not have calories; they only serve as minerals and vitamins). As you will note, the conversion is ideally 30% fat, 15% protein, and 55% carbohydrate. (During my medical school days, it used to be 15% fat, 30% protein, but probably that was changed because it is really hard to stick to 15% fat, even with the leanest meat you will find. In other words, unrealistic goal???)

The conversion is that 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories; 1 gram of protein or carbohydrate equals 4 cals. So you will have to take into consideration the amount of protein or carbohydrate or fat you are eating in a day...but to plan that, you have to start with a certain food item you eat, let's say, a cup of milk, and consider how much fat and protein and carb is in that cup of milk, calculate the calories in it then subtract that from your TCR, then do the same with other food items you have eaten, during breakfast, for example, then using the food exchange guide, plan the rest of your meals for the day without exceeding the TCR (if you want to maintain or lose weight). BUT THAT PROCESS IS TEDIOUS, and might possibly be confusing. Maybe that was the reason I decided not to post it...and presenting it logically in a manner comprehensible enough to the ordinary blog reader would be quite challenging.

Anyway, I have discovered (since my MT days) an easier way to do just that without you having to flip through pages and pages of food exchange list and holding a calculator and a table of your actual food intake and their caloric contents. The goal anyway is to check your present diet against your caloric requirement, then planning your menu so you will stick to that caloric limit, right?

The NHLBI (National HeartLung and Blood Institute) Menu Planner gives us an easy way to do just that. It is a public service from the government to have this handy web-based menu planner.

How it works:
You select first your meal: breakfast, lunch or dinner. That is, after entering your calorie target for the day. If you take note of my BMR results up here, I have to eat no less than 1200 cal for safe weight loss. It is a coincidence that the Menu Planner has that as default.
After selecting your meal, you go to the Meal Menu on the left and select food items, enter the servings that you are gonna eat. Everytime a food item and # of servings is entered, it will update, so as to show you how many calories are already taken into consideration. If you enter a food item and makes you exceed your TCR, a notice pops up.

One drawback is that it does not have a wide range of food items. If you ate mousse or a chocolate bar, you would not be able to take that into consideration. You will be pretty much limited to what they have on the list. Another is, you will not be able to put in the exact amount of food you take and they should be 0.5 oz at the least.

So if you will still be interested to do it the painstaking way, here's how to approach it.

Convert your TCR in terms of protein, fat, and carbohydrate.

Using mine, with the above results, for example, with the target of 1200 cal to lose weight safely, I am to eat no more than 40 g of fat, 45 g of protein, and 165 g of carb in a day.

Then get a food exchange list, and get crazy taking into consideration the weight in each serving, and then create your menu as dictated by the limitations given by the above calculator. You have to keep in mind that even in bread slices, there is some protein and maybe some fat. If you are willing to get away from sweets and most fats, the online exchange lists will suffice, as they contain the healthier food items.

Some gave good reviews in amazon.com about the FitDay PC Diet and Nutrition Software.
You might want to check it out.

Turkey Deli Sandwich

This is still part of my diet.
For me, it is cold lunch: 3 slices of the deli, a handful of salad greens (Romaine lettuce), 1 slice of American white cheese, 4 slices of Bread and Butter Pickles, and a burger bun (or two slices of bread). Nothing else added (like ketchup or mustard).

One sandwich is all I need for lunch. For my kids, though, if I will serve the same, they need two, either as cold lunch or merienda (snack).

Quick fix for a busy day, and they love it!

(I am down now to 123 pounds, but having a hard time losing more pounds because of several get-togethers. It is more like fluctuating now, averaging 124 plus/minus 2. I am quite satisfied with that nonetheless.)