discussion of calorie counting is a trigger warning, I hear

[alexseanchai]

Spam me with your tastiest high-veggie, high-fruit, and high-calorie recipes, please? My therapist commented that it didn't sound like I'm eating much, so today (which was an average day foodwise) I was counting calories, and lo and behold I am not eating enough veggies or fruits or calories overall. I only have one day's data, but if we subtract the pita chips I only ate because the total-calories-so-far number was awful low and we add in the dinner I have not yet had, I'm coming in at ~1500 calories when I should be at 2000, with no veggies or fruit and not enough dairy.

Ideally I want things that refrigerate well, have inexpensive ingredients, and aren't too time-consuming to prepare, in no particular order. I've no dietary restrictions I know of.

Comments

[tptigger]

Acorn squash: microwave 3 min on high, cut in half, scoop out seeds, put face down, microwave 2 min, turn over add butter or margarine and brown sugar to taste. Microwave 3-4 min. This is from an Los microwave recipe book, and I've found with smaller squashes I've had to adjust times downwards.

[alexseanchai]

Ooo sounds nom.

[princessofgeeks]

avocados. in any form.

in salad.

by themselves with ranch dip. by themselves with a squeeze of lemon.

also, anything with NUTS.

also, CHEESE.

*cheers you on*

[cantarina]

Also, dipped in balsamic vinegar! Or mashed onto a pita with basil.

[alexseanchai]

Avocado and balsamic? Hmmm. Thanks!

[cantarina]

Seriously. That is a dead easy snack and more delicious than words.

[alexseanchai]

I have an avocado now, though it is not ripe yet, and I have balsamic already, so I will find out soon!

[alexseanchai]

I bought an avocado, though the Internet tells me it is not squishy enough to be ripe, which is to say not the least bit squishy. But then neither were any of the others for sale.

Nuts and cheese. Okay.

[princessofgeeks]

if you put avocados in a paper sack and leave them on the counter they will ripen in two or three days.

and they can be just a bit squishy and ripe. not too squishy.

good luck!

[alexseanchai]

:)

[grrlfag]

It's hard to go wrong with fruit in cream. I like the fruit fresh (oranges, apples, berries, anything, really), but it's also great with cooked or baked fruit (mmm, apples), and cream can be dairy, coconut, soy, whatever works for you. I like it as is, but it also works with cinnamon, a little nutmeg, lemon grate, fresh mint, rosemary, sage, lavender, clove, allspiceת, cardamom, or if you're adventurous - caraway, dried coriander, even white pepper.

Another nice option is Halva spread - I'm not sure what you have in your area, but any sort of sesame, almond, nut paste, sweetened with crushed dates, or brown sugar melted in warm water. Just mix it, add some water if you'd like to dip stuff in it, or leave it as is and use it as a spread. Goes nicely on fruit slices (or just toast), and I personally like it on cucumbers and celery, but I get weird looks for that :-)

Which reminds me - peanut butter+water and a little garlic and pepper if you like, is also great to dip veggies in.

[redsixwing]

I have got to try Halva spread. Yum.

[grrlfag]

Yes! :-)

[alexseanchai]

Fruit and cream, got it.

Peanut butter plus water as a dip? I wonder if that would solve my texture issues with the stuff. And with garlic, sounds tasty.

[grrlfag]

I like the texture better when it's diluted. Might work for you, I don't know :-)

[alexseanchai]

:)

[gblvr]

I'm carrying on a love affair with Chopped Broccoli Salad at the moment; these are my two favorite variations (so far).

Variation #1: 3 cups broccoli, finely chopped; 1 cup of carrots, diced; 1 apple, diced; 9 strips of bacon, cooked and diced; 3 green onions, diced; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar; 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard; 1 tablespoon fresh dill; black pepper to taste; mix well and serve chilled.

Variation #2: 3 cups broccoli, finely chopped; 1 cup of carrots, diced; 1 pear, diced; ham, cooked and diced; 3 green onions, diced; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar; 1 tablespoon dijon mustard; 1/4 cup of gorgonzola cheese; black pepper to taste; mix well and serve chilled.

(If you are a vegetarian, you can take the meat out, and either variety will still taste awesome.)

[alexseanchai]

Those both sound nom. Not sure about the gorgonzola, which is entirely because I can't recall ever having any.

[redsixwing]

Veggies, dairy, and high calorie? Can do! Anything involving spinach and cheese (or broccoli and cheese) makes me happy. I love cruciferous vegetables, though. ^^; Leaving off anything that is a particularly involved recipe or takes more than an hour to prep.

I am always a fan of chopped fresh veggies with dip. A packet of French Onion soup in a thing of sour cream makes a good, fast, easy dip, if you like onions. This one isn't terribly high-calorie unless you really load on the dip.

These broccoli fritters are one of my favorite things and hold happily in the fridge for several days as long as they are allowed to cool and the oil is patted out of them first (if not, they get soggy; not the end of the world). Put some sauteed onion in for extra delicious. Depending on how many you make, they can take a while - if I'm going to do fritters, I usually set aside an hour and turn out a week's worth of them.

If you have a source of bitter greens (chard, collard, beet, kale...) you can slice them small and steam them, then throw in raisins or dried cranberries and bacon bits, pull it off the heat, and let it sit for about five minutes. This holds really well in the fridge and eats well either hot or cold. Saute it with vinegar if you want a crisp taste, or butter if you want it richer, or... really whatever you like. It's hard to go wrong here.

Quiche is a bit more involved and pushes that hour limit, but if you make it crustless, it's a lot easier. It takes about 8oz of your favorite veggie, maybe 4 of shredded cheese in the filling (and put the rest on top, if you like cheese - I do!) and 4 eggs - pour the whole mess into a greased pie tin, and bake at 350 for an hour. I've had a simple quiche like that hold for up to a week refrigerated, and it also transports easily and eats well hot or cold. Microwaving it can make the eggs weird, but usually doesn't.

If you have a blender and a good way to transport and store frozen food, smoothies are also a possibility.

My favorite way to do it is 1 scoop (whatever size you like) of frozen yogurt, 1 unfrozen banana, 1-2 scoops of fresh or frozen fruit (the fresher everything is, the softer the smoothie will be) and a splash of whatever liquid takes your fancy (milk or juice work well). These don't keep well, but are an easy, sweet way to eat a lot of fruit quickly.

They are also an enormous amount of sugar all at once (thanks to the fruit and also the yogurt) so I like to put a scoop of whey protein in to balance it a bit.

If you want to go less fruit but higher calorie, substitute the frozen fruit for a scoop of unfrozen yogurt and toss a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter in there. :D

That's probably enough wall of text from me, lol!

[alexseanchai]

Those fritters look really tasty. I am printing the recipe to try tomorrow.

Quiche, ugh, no. I do not know why ugh no, because the ingredients for quiche are always good independently, but something about mixing the eggs and dairy, nuh-uh.

Smoothies...that's a possibility. Thank you!

[neotoma]

A dessert cup of mascarpone, seasonal fruit, and honey should be high calorie enough for your doctor, and tasty enough for you to finish.

I also think this apple, sausage, and cabbage dish is fantastic, cheap, and easy to cook.

And since you like pita chips, I recommend the white bean, feta, and zaatar dip. It takes a bit of time to make, but it's fantastic. You can substitute canned cooked beans (1 cup dry = 2 cups canned) and roast garlic from a jar to speed things up, though the texture will suffer -- still tasty though.

[alexseanchai]

What's mascarpone?

We have cabbage approximately once a year, with corned beef on St. Paddy's, and it's horrid. (Also coleslaw occasionally, but there it's disguised.) But as far as I know all Mom does with the stuff is boil the hell out of it. Adding flavory stuff while cooking it, that could do good things, I'll have to try it.

Thanks!

[neotoma]

Mascarpone is a triple cream cheese, similar to ricotta.

Yeah, boiling cabbage to death results in awfulness. This dish braises the cabbage in the apple juice -- note how short the cook time is -- and the result is rather sweet with no sulfurous taste to it.

[alexseanchai]

Ooo, okay.

*nodnod*

[inoru_no_hoshi]

Augh that is the wrong way to do corned beef and cabbage! D:

What you do is you cook the corned beef - preferably with yummy yummy complimentary seasonings - until it's falling-apart tender, THEN you add the cabbage and only cook til soft enough to be easy to eat and reduced enough in volume to actually fit in the pan, but still has a firmness to it. (This does not actually take very long.)

Boiling anything to death will kill it, though, and I'm sorry that's ruined your taste for this. :(

/info you probably didn't want or need, but I have Opinions. <3

[alexseanchai]

Hey, maybe if I share the Opinions we won't have to go through it again this year. Though I got her Irish cookbooks for birthday and Christmas and she still says we're having corned beef and cabbage, so maybe not.

[theladyscribe]

Roasted brussel sprouts: slice sprouts in half, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, roast at 350-375 for 10-15 minutes (or longer if necessary). Outer leaves should be browning and sprouts should be tender (but not mushy!) when done. You can also do this with asparagus, or really any sturdy/woody vegetable (zucchini and yellow squash spring to mind).

If you don't want to mess with the oven: dice some bacon and toss in a pan (or use salted butter if you don't eat meat), throw in diced garlic and sliced brussel sprouts. Toss and saute for about 5 minutes, pour in ~1/8 cup water, cover with a lid and steam for 5-10 minutes. Check to see if the sprouts are tender. If not, let cook a little longer. If they're tender, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

[princessofgeeks]

yum

[alexseanchai]

I have never had brussel sprouts. Mom refuses to have them in the house. Asparagus, that's a possibility, and zucchini, and I might buy brussel sprouts while Mom's not looking anyway. Thank you!

[topaz119]

peel and section a clementine, top it with vanilla greek yogurt, some granola and a drizzle of honey.

Or peanut butter, a little jelly and a banana sliced longways on a toasted english muffin.

In the summer, when the tomatoes are good, sliced tomato and avocado on whole grain toast.

Roasted asparagus: snap the woody ends off, put the spears on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and toss with your hands to coat. Sprinkle with coarse salt and fresh ground pepper, roast at 425 for 10-15 minutes or until they're cooked to your liking. You can also substitute parmesan for the salt/pepper.

You can actually do variations on this for lots of veggies: brussels sprounts, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower (especially good with the parmesan or even some mild curry spices.)

Look for packets of already cut-up butternut squash at the store, then just steam and toss with a little butter. Parmesan on top is also nice.

If you're in a hurry, frozen mixed veggies cook up in about the same amount of time as ramen noodles do, and if you don't use the packet of mostly msg and salt that comes as the flavoring, ramen is pretty okay as a base. (I buy jars of Better Than Bouillon and use that to make a broth for lots of things.) A lot of stores have Asian mixes or stir fry mixes of frozen veggies; throw some of those in with the ramen and broth and add a little sesame oil / soy sauce / sriracha and it's pretty tasty.

[alexseanchai]

Clementine is fruit? Though probably any fruit with yogurt, granola, and honey...

Parmesan on butternut squash? That sounds really good.

Thanks!

[topaz119]

Oh, yes, sorry--they're little oranges! Also, if you like the idea of cheese & butternut squash, try a sprinkling a little blue cheese on top. Pecans go well with that, too.

[dawn-bat.livejournal.com]

- Egg salad made with a little honey and garlic (garlic powder or fresh)
- Frozen bananas taste good
- Diced apple and cheese sprinkled with cinnamon. Fruit and dairy and something that's less awkward to eat out of the house than wedges of apple. This is good in packed lunches because making it the night before lets the cinnamon soak into the apple. You can put some orange juice on the apple to make it not go brown and taste fruitier.
- Salad dressing on cooked vegetables improves the taste
- Creamy cole slaw. (Dressing recipe available on request, I'm too tired to hunt it up right now.) If you can get shredded cabbage that's not ridiculously expensive, it keeps better if you put the dressing on each serving separately. Cutting up cabbage leaves might be too much work, but cabbage is cheap, so I'm not sure how it balances out for you.

[alexseanchai]

Thank you!

[seekergeek]

Frittatas. They're like quiche but faster and without the crust. You can put any sort of veggies (potato, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, broccoli, and tomatoes are my favorite choices) any kind of meat or tofu (if you want) and cheese (if you feel like it).

In an oven safe frying pan, saute your veggies and meat (or tofu) of choice in olive or canola oil until nearly done, then add beaten eggs (a small frying pan will require 4 eggs minimum, more for larger pan). Cook over medium heat until you start to see the eggs set. Add cheese if desired. Turn on oven broiler and set frying pan in oven under broiler. Cook until the top is set. Let rest for a few minutes before cutting into wedges. Can be eaten hot or cold. Goes well with a side salad (salad in bag works wonders for adding veggies to diet) and soup (also another source of veggies if chosen well).

[alexseanchai]

Thanks!

Uh, you *did* say spam you, right?

[seekergeek]

Veggie soup. Bag of frozen mixed veg, can of veggie or chicken broth. Dump in pot. Boil till done. Mash some of the veggies and add cream at the end to make Creamy veggie soup. (If you add cream, it can still be easily reheated as long as you don't boil it.)

Good with grilled-cheese sandwiches!

(I can spam you with more recipes if you want (dear GOD, can I spam you, jesus), but my fruit recipes consist solely of pies and cobblers, alas.)

Re: Uh, you *did* say spam you, right?

[alexseanchai]

*nodnod* Thanks!