Category: Food

Stur: A Healthy and Convenient Flavored Drink Option

It seems like there are just more and more drink options available when you visit a supermarket. And while some of them are healthy, most of them are not. The ones that aren’t contain either too much sugar or artificial ingredients like sweeteners and food coloring. For a while, I’ve been making green tea sweetened with all-natural monk fruit mixed with Stevia. The problem with that is I’m often too busy to prepare it and it takes time for the tea to brew. Fortunately, there is now both a healthy and instant flavored drink alternative called Stur.

I’ve been trying Stur now for about a week, and I’m pretty impressed. It checks all the checkboxes for a healthy drink in addition to being super easy to prepare: just get a glass of cold water, squirt the liquid into the water, and drink. You don’t even need to refrigerate the small bottle, so you can bring it with you to restaurants where you can save a lot of money by not paying a huge markup for flavored drinks.

There are many flavors to choose from. So far, I’ve tried

  • Blue and blackberry
  • Strawberry watermelon
  • Fruit punch

and all 3 were good.

You can buy the ultimate variety pack on Amazon for $45.

Quick and Easy Cucumber Salad

Most salads contain multiple vegetables and leafy greens like lettuce, tomatoe, and onion. The problem with some of these ingredients is they go back fairly quickly, especially lettuce, which becomes slimy, discolored, and smells. Grape tomatoes tend to wrinkle and look unappetizing. One vegetable, however, seems to stay and look fresh for about 2 weeks – cucumbers. Cucumbers are also high in water content, which can help you feel full and eat less. They are also low in carbohydrates and sugar, and have a low glycemic index (GI). This means that cucumbers don’t cause a rapid increase in blood sugar.  They can be a good snack for people who want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. 

Here’s a simple recipe for a cucumber salad.

Ingredients

  • Cucumber (1)
  • Water (1/2 cup)
  • Salt (1 tsp)

Instructions

  1. Pour water in a bowl
  2. Add the salt and mix till dissolved
  3. Slice the cucumber, add to bowl and mix

High-Protein Scrambled Steak ‘n Eggs

This dish contains 52 grams of protein and 500 calories.

Ingredients

  • 4 x eggs (24g protein, 312 cal)
  • 1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese (12g protein, 80 cal)
  • 1 x Steak-eze patty (16g protein, 110 cal)
  • 1 or 2 handfuls of fire-roasted veggies
    • Trader Joe’s Fire Roasted Bell Peppers and Onions
    • Pura Vida Fire Roasted Vegetable Melange
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions

  1. Spray cooking oil on a medium pan and heat on medium
  2. Place patty and bell peppers and onion in the pan
  3. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper
  4. After 5 minutes, flip the patty
  5. After 5 minutes stir
  6. Combine the eggs and cottage cheese and blend
  7. Pour the eggs and cottage cheese blend into the pan
  8. Stir occasionally until desired consistency
  9. Enjoy

Slow-Digesting Breakfast For All-Day Satiety

Whether you’re planning to fast before a medical operation or otherwise, or don’t plan to have access to much food for a long period, I’ve found the following food incredibly effective at staving off hunger. Ramadan fasters, take note! The following foods have a low glycemic index and are digested slowly.

Warning: consuming some of these foods may cause bloating and flatulence, but if you consume it every day, those symptoms will go away within a week.

Kirkland Signature Organic Ancient Grain Granola

Available at Costco, this granola is high in fiber, healthy and delicious. The downside is it has 8 grams of added sugar. Costco should make a version replacing sugar with the all-natural, zero-calorie Monk fruit. I prefer to consume a bowl of this with unsweetened almond or soy milk and optionally some berries. Learn more.

MUSH Overnight Oats

Also available at Costco, these prepackaged overnight oats are convenient and healthy. There’s no added sugar, but they’re still sweet. Learn more.

Greek yogurt (optional)

Greek yogurt is very thick compared with regular yogurt and typically higher in protein, too. This particular one is sweetened with all-natural stevia extract, which is better than cane sugar and artificial sweeteners like sucralose. I consider this to be optional.

Dutch Hagelslag: Low-Calorie DIY Donut

The average sprinkle donut has 260 calories.

For a similar low-calorie alternative, replace that with Dutch Hagelslag. The recipe below contains only 120 calories!

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Spread butter on one slice of bread
  2. Top with sprinkles
  3. Eat

Compare

If you must have the shape be like a donut, you can use a large and small cookie cutter to turn the bread slice into a donut.

Pasta with Keto Bread: Quick, Low-Calorie Stomach Filler

I came across this sample food at Costco. It was Kirkland Organic Marinara from Tuscany dipped in ciabatta bread. It was surprisingly good, but the ciabatta bread was high in calories and not keto. So, here’s a keto version that is super quick to make and can fill you up in a jiffy.

Ingredients

  • Artisan Bakery Sonoma County Keto Bread (available at Costco)
  • Kirkland Organic Marinara from Tuscany

Instructions

  1. Heat up some of the marinara in a microwave
  2. Toast the bread slices to your desired toastiness
  3. Spoon the marinara onto the bread slices
  4. Eat

It’s like eating a healthy pizza without the high-calorie cheese. Four slices followed by a glass or two of water will make you feel satiated while only consuming less than 200 calories!

Keto, Low-Calorie Burger Recipe

Bun – 6 grams of carbs, 80 calories

A traditional burger bun like Artesano bakery bun contains 34 grams of net carbs and 190 calories. Replace that with an Orowheat Keto bun, which contains only 6 net carbs and 80 calories.

Beef Patty – 140 calories

A traditional beef patty like Costco’s Kirkland Signature Ground 1/3-lb (151 grams) Beef Patties contains 440 calories. Replace that with Smart ‘n Final’s First Street 96/4 (96% lean, 4% fat) 1/3-lb beef patties, which contain only 140 calories each.

Ketchup

Traditional ketchup like Heinz tomato ketchup contains 5 carbs and 20 calories per tablespoon. Replace that with Heinz tomato ketchup with no sugar added, which contains only 1 gram of carbs and 10 calories per tablespoon.

Cheese

A regular slice of cheddar cheese like Sargento’s cheddar cheese slices contains 80 calories. Replace that with something like Sargento’s reduced fat cheddar cheese slices, which contains only 60 calories per slice.

Or, go with slim-cut mozzarella cheese slices, which are only 35 calories per slice.

Or, just skip the cheese altogether.

Total Calories: 250

Set-It-and-Forget-It Cheeseburger Recipe

If you’re making a burger and your meat is not frozen, then you can stick a thermometer in your patty and let the thermometer beep when the meat is at your desired temperature. The problem with this is you may have to flip the burger one or more times and, if your patty is thin or not dense, it may be difficult getting the thermometer probe in the center and staying there. If your patty is frozen, like it is at many stores that sell packages of burger patties, then you can’t stick a thermometer in it.

Frozen burger patties may not taste the best, but they are still good. Since they’re frozen, they will last long as well. To simplify the cooking process, I use the T-fal Optigrill. It grills both sides and has a drip tray to catch all fatty juices.

Here’s how to cook a frozen beef patty in the simplest way possible.

  1. Press the power button to turn on the Optigrill
  2. Press the snowflake button because your patties are frozen
  3. Press the burger button since we’re making a burger. The Optigrill will heat up as indicated by the blue light. This takes about 5 minutes.
  1. When the Optigrill beeps, it’s done heating up. Open the lid and place your patties.
  2. The Optigrill will beep and change color every time the meat reaches a doneness level.

When the Optigrill has reached your desired doneness based on the color of the doneness cycle, remove your patties. In my experience, it takes about 7 minutes to get to medium-well.

For the buns, Artesano Bakery Buns are pretty good. Don’t toast these buns. They taste good as is at room temperature.

Fried Rice Made Using Automatic Pot Stirrer

One thing I really dislike when cooking is having to occasionally stir the food. This is the case with fried rice, soups, and stir-fried vegetables. Fortunately, the Koreans feel the same way. A company called LAMPCOOK with the slogan “Innovative Cooking” sells this (overpriced) automatic pot stirrer on Amazon for $155. I normally would spend that much on a pot, but like I said, I really dislike manually stirring food every so often for 10-20 minutes while cooking.

I’ve had the pot for a couple of weeks now and it actually works. But, you can’t put it over heat higher than medium. If you do, you’ll see discoloration at the center.

In this post, I’ll share my recipe for a super simple fried riced cauliflower dish. Riced cauliflower has far fewer calories than rice, and it’s a healthier option. For the flavor, I’ve found either one of the following fried rice packets to be the best.

  • Indofood Racik Bumbu Spesial Nasi Goreng
  • Bamboe Nasi Goreng

Ingredients

  • 1 lb of frozen riced cauliflower (available in packs of 5 at Costco)
  • One of the two spice packets above
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • Oil spray

Instructions

  1. Spray pot with oil
  2. Add water and riced cauliflower
  3. Remove the glass window, turn on the stirrer, and cook on medium
  4. Set a timer for 20 minutes and go do something useful
  5. After 20 minutes, the water should have evaporated. Remove the lid and stirrer arm attachment.
  6. Add the spice mix and stir with a heat-resistant and scratch-resistant silicone spatula.
  7. Optionally, mix in precooked meat, vegetables, eggs, etc.
  8. Transfer to a plate or bowl and enjoy

A Comparison of Chicken Spice Seasoning

There are many spice blends available for chicken. But, which one is the best? I tasted 7 different ones and scored each on a scale of 1 to 10. The winner goes to Target’s Good & Gather Chili Lime seasoning followed closely by Chef Merito Chicken seasoning and McCormick Perfect Pinch Rotisserie seasoning.

Spice SeasoningTaste (1-10)
Good and Gather Chili Lime7
Chef Merito Chicken6.5
McCormick Perfect Pinch Rotisserie6.5
Zatarain’s Creole Seasoning6.3
McCormick Perfect Pinch Cajun6
Old Bay Seasoning5
Lemon Pepper4.5
McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Chicken4
Tajin Clasico3
Chef Merito Chicken Marinade2
Sadaf Garam Masala0
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