Yumminess with a Lettuce Spoon

September 6, 2009

One of the things I’ve resolved to do since we re-entered the word of “food eating human beings” is to avoid wasting food whenever possible and this is especially true of vegetables. In a world where even one person would go to bed hungry, let alone millions, I’m embarrassed by the quantity of bendable carrots and slightly edgy yellow peppers I’ve tossed into the garbage can and I’m committed to doing things different. One of the best ways I’ve found to use up veggies past their prime freshness is to include them into a simmering pot of anything and so when the veggies begin to accumulate I’ll make a spontaneous meal from any scraps I can gather in the refrigerator and cupboards. Sometimes it’s a hit. Sometimes it’s a tragic miss. Last night, according to D, I hit it out of the park.

I  started by browning 1/2 pound of ground beef in a deep sauce pan over medium high heat. Last night I used ground chuck rather than one of the ultra lean options that are now available because not only is it cheaper than the leaner choices but the higher fat content gives a much more rounded beef flavor. While I realize going with ground chuck means sacrificing the health benefits of a leaner option on the plus side once the meat was thoroughly cooked I dumped it into a colander and pressed the surface firmly down with paper towels to remove as much of the fat as possible.

To the now empty but lightly beef-greased sauce pan I added one finely-chopped onion to sweat. Once the onion bits were translucent I added a handful of sliced mushrooms, a finely chopped red pepper, a small can of diced green chilis and 2 crushed garlic cloves. After about five minutes I threw in one can of mexican-seasoned diced tomatoes. Just the contents of the can. Not the can itself. I then tossed the beef back into the whole mess and let it simmer while I prepped the rest of the meal so the flavors could mix and play with each other.

That last two paragraphs took about 10 minutes of total prep and cooking time.

I could have just served the beefy-tomatoey-spicy goodness in bowls with chips and called it a day but I like to make eating fun so I cut the bottom off the stalk of a head of romaine lettuce, cut the leaves in half and arranged them on a platter. Finally I took a condiment tray and filled the different sections with non-fat sour cream, taco sauce, diced avocado, diced fresh tomatoes, and *grated cheddar and manchego cheese.

With a soup bowl of the sort-of-kind-of chili in front of each of us, we’d put a spoonful on the center of a lettuce leaf, top with the condiments, and proceed to gobble. It was fun eating it that way but half way into the meal I got lazy, put the condiments on top of the remaining chili and used the firm romaine leaves like scooping spoons.

I didn’t calculate the calories but they would have fallen within a good range. I’d drained as much fat from the beef as possible and never used any additional fat in cooking aside from the little beef juice and fat that remained in the pan. When the cooking veggies needed a little more liquid I just sprinkled in water to keep them cooking down. We each had just over 3 ounces of cooked beef, 1 ounce of cheese and about half of a very small avocado. The rest were low-calorie veggies and the portions were more than ample to satisfy us for the evening.

* To make a little cheese go along way, use a lemon zester to grate the cheese rather than grating with a regular hand held grater or buying the pre-grated cheese. The lemon zester grates the cheese so fine that it takes on a fluffy filled out texture that visually makes you think you’re using more than you really are. No one loves cheese more than I do and while it’s a great food in moderation, the fat content from just a little cheese can bust the bank wide open calorie-wise.

Posted in Apron Adventures