checking in on euro 2020 in 2021

After diving into my ancestry, I have 5 legit teams to root for in Euro 2020:

Germany
Poland
Sweden
Denmark
England

So how am I doing?

Poland finished last in Group E, while the other 4 advanced to the knockout round of 16. 

Denmark beat Wales to advance to the final 8. 

Germany and England met in the round of 16, with England advancing 2-0. 

I'm watching Sweden-Ukraine right now in the round of 16, Sweden trailing 0-1 currently. 

So Denmark and England are in the final 8 with their next matches coming on July 3. 

And as I type that, Sweden gets the equalizer against Ukraine! 1-1 as halftime approaches. 

If Sweden advances, I'll have a 3/4 chance of having a team in the final as Sweden, Denmark and England are all on the same side of the bracket, along with Czech Republic. (Sweden would face England next.)

Update: Ukraine beats Sweden. So I'm down to England and Denmark. 

a food scale is a gamechanger

I love my food scale. I use it every day. 

I knew it would make things more precice, but I love how it makes things faster and less to clean up. I just made some chicken salad. I put the medium/large mixing bowl on the scale. Scoop the greek yogurt directly into the bowl. Squeeze the relish directly on top. No need to fiddle with measuring cups or getting any of them dirty. 

I like how repeatable it makes everything. I can make single bowls of macaroni for the kids and know I'm making 84grams of pasta every time.

Current Rotation

The dishes I've been having the most in the last few weeks: 

Pita Pizzas 

Meatball Hoagie

Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad

Dishes I've had on multiple occasions lately:

Healthy Mac & Cheese

Carnitas Hoagie

Italian Hoagie

Poblano Queso Tacos

Dishes I should make again soon:

Italian Flag Pasta Salad

Chicken Schwarma

Nashville Hot Chicken

Sloppy Joes

Daily Favorites: Biscuits & Gravy

I love biscuits and gravy. They replaced french toast as my go-to breakfast restaurant order some time ago. But healthy and biscuits & gravy have never really gone together. 

At one point, this were on my cheat meal list. Then I thought maybe I could just have biscuit and gravy (just have one). And then I found Trader Joe's Maple Chicken Breakfast Sausage, starting doing some math and figured I could make this work. 

- - -

2 Trader Joe's buttermilk biscuits (from canister) = 340 cals

2 maple chicken sausage links = 90 cals

1/2 cup almond milk = 15 cals

15g flour = 55 cals

worcestershire sauce, salt, lots of pepper

500 calorie biscuits and gravy!

- - -

The whole time I was worried that I added too much almond milk and it wasn't going to thicken. I had measured out 30 grams of flour and was adding them in a spoon at a time. And then all of a sudden, it got really thick. And then it didn't quite cover the biscuits although it was close and good enough.

So next time I would try 3/4 cup of almond milk, and maybe 17grams of flour. 

- - -

This is more calories than I eat for breakfast, but that's no big deal. Just slide this in as a weekend brunch/lunch/late breakfast and it will be all good.

The more of my favorite meals that I can eat healthy versions of, the better off I'm going to be in the long run.

Daily Favorites: Healthy Mac & Cheese: 3 Ways

This has been it's own mini pasta journey. It started because I was having a moment with greek yogurt and amazed at the protein and calories numbers and trying to find way so work it into more recipes. But I really wanted to nail this because my kids love mac & cheese, so I wanted to find the perfect healthy mac & cheese that I could always have the ingredients on hand and make for them anytime. 

My holiday-style indulgent mac & cheese is super delicious, but also probably like 1000 calories per serving. And I make it in a giant dish so it's possible for me to eat multiple servings. Kraft blue box isn't terrible on calories but doesn't taste that great. Could I split the difference somehow and make one under 650 calories for a satisfying bowl that tastes great?

I set out to make the perfect healthy mac & cheese. But as I learned in one of my favorite Malcolm Gladwell pieces, "There is no one perfect spaghetti sauce. There are only perfect spaghetti sauces."

So I've devised three separate recipes for different occasions and flavor preferences. (I went into this thinking I could use the impressive nutrition of greek yogurt, but that didn't work. Instead, unsweetened almond milk at 30 calories a cup was helpful.)

Healthy Mac & Cheese #1: The Blue Box Killer

Instant powder stovetop mac. 410 calories. 

This is the simplest one and also the lowest-calorie. It's better tasting and lower-calorie than Kraft Mac & Cheese. 

In all recipes, I'm starting with 84 grams of dry pasta. This is a three-ounce serving coming in at 300 calories, regardless of shape or brand. I intentionally wanted to make recipes with sizes for one person. It's easy to double or triple recipes. But if I make a big recipe with the hopes of having leftovers, it never works out that way. (I eat the whole pot.) 

Cheese Sauce
30g light sour cream (35 cals)
21g cheese powder (75 cals)
just a few drops of almond milk

While the noodles are cooking, I measure and mix the sour cream and cheese powder together. I just got a food scale which is fun to use and makes everything more precise and repeatable. Literally a few drops of almond milk helps stir it together into a creamy sauce that's ready to go. In case you're wondering, an entire cup of the unsweetened almond milk is only 30 calories, so a few drops is literally under a calorie.  

This is perfect for the kids. 

Healthy Mac & Cheese #2: Quick, Creamy & Cheesy

Real cheese quick stovetop mac. 575 calories

Start with 84 grams of dry pasta. While the noodles are cooking, in a separate pot, we're going to make a cheese sauce.

Cheese Sauce

50g of low-fat evaporated milk (slightly less than 2 liquid ounces) 
60g of grated cheese (some combination of mozzarella, white cheddar, pepper jack)
dash of cheese powder (optional)
unsweetened almond milk as necessary to thin it out 
pepper
drop of mustard (optional)

Warm the milk, and then a little at a time, start adding the cheese until it all gets melty. Just a few grams of the cheese powder gives it a nice color and boosts the cheese flavor, but it will work without it. 

Pepper jack and white cheddar are my two favorite cheeses. Love the flavor they bring. The mozzarella ads meltiness and is less calories too. If I didn't have the evaporated milk on hand, I would add 7 grams of flour to 2-3 ounces almond milk. 

Drain the pasta and stir it into the pot with the sauce and you're ready to eat.

Healthy Mac & Cheese #3: Weekend Version

Oven-baked mac. 585 calories. 

This is basically the same recipe as #2, but it gets baked. From when you start boiling the water to when you take you first bite is around an hour, so that's why this is a weekend recipe. It's not harder, just takes more time. 

Again starting with 84g of pasta. I like penne for this one.

Cheese Sauce

45g of low-fat evaporated milk (slightly less than 2 liquid ounces) 
60g of grated cheese (white cheddar, pepper jack)
dash of cheese powder (optional)
unsweetened almond milk as necessary to thin it out 
pepper
drop of mustard (optional)

Topping

5g of cheese

- - -

This gets baked at 350F for 20-25 minutes.

This was hands-down my favorite. It's crazy that this is the same recipe as above. The baking step transforms the dish into something else entirely. Instead of tasting like pasta with a cheese sauce, they become one cohesive unit. For me personally, baking is always going to be worth it. 

The one area for improvement, I had too much surface area. If I use a smaller baking dish, I can still get crispy edges but hopefully not have too many dry spots. (Note to self: use the boat-looking dish I used on the twice-baked potato.)

With this recipe it would be easy to double or triple for family, but it's essential to have the recipe work for one so that I can just make what I need and not have to rely on willpower to save leftovers. At the end of the plate, my taste buds wanted to keep eating, but I didn't need more than 600 cals for lunch. Since there wasn't anymore, it was easy to just move on.

I almost put in too much almond milk and had a thin sauce at the end. I ended up adding more cheese to the sauce to thicken and having less reserved for the topping. I didn't add any cheese powder this time, but could try that next time. 

This was the last of eight or nine experiments, and when I got to this, I was like yes, this is it. This is what I set out to make. But in the process, I also discovered a lower-calorie version for the kids and a quicker version for anyone. 

Daily Favorites: Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad

In the last few years, chicken salad has become one of my favorite foods. Though when you get it at a sandwich place or the grocery deli, who knows how many calories they're putting in? Let's see if greek yogurt can take this from a rare treat to a daily favorite.

Let's break down what's in it. 

150g frozen shredded chicken (seasoned with garlic+) = 180 cals
20g dried cranberries = 70 cals

red onion, celery, granny smith apple = 25 cals

85g nonfat plain chobani greek yogurt = 45 cals

45g pickle relish = 45 cals

lemon juice, salt, pepper, fresh dill if you've got it

My entire serving of 377 grams of chicken salad is 365 calories. Eat it in a bowl instead of between bread to hold onto the calorie savings. 

Using some quick google + math, it says 377g of chicken salad from Kroger would be 829 calories. 

At Chicken Salad Chick, their serving is only 113g of chicken salad. So I'm getting 3x the chicken salad by making at home. Their Fancy Nancy chicken salad has apples so let's see the cals for that...377g of that would be 1365 calories. Jesus Christ. I didn't even pick the variety with the most calories. Don't ever go to Chicken Salad Chick. Restaurants just do not care about your health. 

- - -

As for the taste, this is super great. It's not as 100% as rich as a full-fat mayo chicken salad, but that's kinda what we're going for here. It didn't have any yogurt tang throwing the flavors off. Just felt like a lighter dressing, while still being very filling and dense overall. Using fruit, vegetables and chicken to be the filling part instead of mayo. 

My classic recipe for chicken salad uses apple and dried cranberries as well as golden raisins and candied nuts. In the store, I told myself I could only pick one high-cal ingredient of cranberries, raisins and nuts. Went with cranberries for color and flavor. I've added onions and celery to make up for them. 

At that point, I wasn't sure how many calories it would all be. Now that I know it's lower than I guessed, I could be more flexible on future batches. 

Pickles would be a good addition. Would love to get the golden raisins back in, maybe some slivered almonds instead of candied nuts. I also didn't think of the fresh dill until I got home. Plenty of ways to use this recipe as a base and make again with different ingredients.

EDIT: Go-to recipe now includes: apple, onion, pickles, cherry peppers, cranberries, slivered almonds optional.

Daily Favorites: Italian Flag Pasta Salad

This was the first Daily Favorites dish that I created by accident. 

On Friday night, I was experimenting, trying to create a healthy mac and cheese. At one point, the cheese sauce I was making broke completely, so I took the three ounces of cooked pasta that I had and stashed it in the fridge. 

Today, I figured I could use to make a quick pasta salad, adapting my existing recipe:

I happened to have a red pepper, white onion and pickles in my fridge so I started chopping everything up. I looked down and realized I had unintentionally created the Italian flag on my cutting board. 

Once I saw that, I was like okay, this is now a Daily Favorites recipe. 

84g (3 ounces) of dry pasta, cooked and cooled

chopped pickles, white onion and red pepper

The dressing I whipped up: light sour cream, nonfat greek yogurt, pickle juice, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano. 

It is better with cheddar cubes, but you can't argue with the calories. 300 calories from the pasta, and probably 50-75 for the dressing and vegetables combined. The portion felt like dinner. I could make 1.5-2 ounces of pasta for a side dish to pair with brats, burger or chicken.

Completed experiment #5 of healthier "daily favorites" mac and cheese. About 5 more experiments to run, at least before I land on a finished recipe. (The first three experiments were inedible, but 4 and 5 were really good.)

Can't lose in game 7 of the second round for the third straight year if you don't force a game 7

fuck

It's so fucking weird that there was a basketball team called the New Orleans Jazz with a Mardi Gras color scheme that played there for 5 years...and then moved to Salt Lake City for the next 40+ years but kept the Jazz team name and Mardi Gras colors. 

Here's a three-team trade that would sort some of this out:

New Orleans Jazz

Utah Trailblazers

Portland Pelicans

light mayo vs light sour cream vs greek yogurt

 

I like creamy sauces and salad dressings on just about anything that I'm making. Since I'm watching my cals, this has meant switching to light Hellman's mayo and light Daisy sour cream. Recently I've introduced nonfat greek yogurt into the mix. If you only look at one number it looks like light mayo has 35 cals, light sour cream has 35 and greek yogurt has 90. But you can't only look at one number. Each one has a different portion size. Let's level the playing field and look at a nutrition facts in one cup. 

One Cup of Hellman's Light Mayo
560 calories
16 carbs
0 protein

One Cup of Daisy Light Sour Cream
280 calories
16 carbs
16 protein

One Cup of Chobani Plain Nonfat Greek Yogurt
120 calories
8 carbs
21 protein

That's a bigger difference than I imagined. And this is the light mayo! Dang. 

While I haven't yet grown to like the taste of the greek yogurt by itself as a snack, I have successfully made a couple sauces already. Mixing it with buffalo wing sauce (0 cals) made for a very low-cal creamy buffalo sauce that I put on a chicken sandwich and a pita pizza. (I got the idea from here, but puposefully skipped the cooking and adding butter step. 2 ingredients, easy mix, boom, done.) I've already made a second batch of my homemade tzatziki which I did use a topping on a pita or english muffin as a snack and it's very good.

I think the next time I need to make a creamy salad dressing, I'll reach for the greek yogurt instead of the mayo. I have a whole list of ideas for how to add more greek yogurt into my life, including a creamy pasta dish and a spinach artichoke dip. 

This stuff is magic.

Edit: One Cup of Hellman's Regular Mayo
1440 calories
0 carbs
0 protein

So 12x the calories of nonfat greek yogurt. Neat.

What the fuck. What a choke job. 

The Avs were leading with 6 minutes to go in Game 3, about to take a 3-0 series lead. 

They took a 2-0 lead into the 3rd tonight, about to take a 3-2 series lead. 

They blew both games, lost three in a row, and now have to win two in a row. 

Much like the Avalanche, for Games 3 and 4 I was on the road. I'll be back home for Game 5. So will the Avs. 

It's now a best of three, and Colorado has home ice. This one feels like it's going 7. 

NHL "Conference" Finals Matchups

Conference is in quotes because the NHL isn't doing conference finals this year. They are reseeding the playoffs for the 3rd round. Here's a quick look at the matchups. 

Colorado/Vegas tied with the best regular season record so the winner of that series will be the #1 seed in the 3rd round. They will face the winner of the Jets/Canadiens series. 

The winner of Lightning/Hurricanes will have home ice as the #2 seed and will face the winner of the Bruins/Islanders.

Daily Favorites: Smoky Chicken Sando

The inspiration for this dish came from walking into my backyard. In suburban Kansas City that night, someone was grilling and the entire neighborhood smelled like beautiful smoke. I said to myself I want that smoke. 

But I wanted to replicate that flavor in an easy way, through ingredients. I researched a few options including liquid smoke, but settled on a combination of smoked paprika which I already had + smoked salt.

I bought a package of chicken tenderloins for the shawarma, but saved two for this sandwich. 

- - -

No marinade required. Turned the broiler on high, patted the chicken with smoked salt, smoked paprika, little cayenne, and black pepper. Broiled for 9 minutes, these were smaller pieces than my shawarma pieces. 

Meanwhile toasted a bun on the electric griddle and whipped up a little sauce: no sugar bbq, worcestershire, smoked salt, smoked paprika. 

That's it. Could have added some pickled onions or something, but wanted to keep it simple to taste the smoke flavor. 

This actually worked. 

It tasted like a chicken sandwich you would get a barbecue place. Look, I know chicken is not the best barbecue, and my broiler is not going to compete with real barbecue. But it turned out great. Very easy, and very healthy too. 

The bun was 130 cals, the chicken probably only like 200. Not much more from the sauce either. So like 350 altogether? It definitely felt more filling than that. 

When I've got a hankering for smoke, this gets the job done.