Jim’s Low Calorie Culinary Concoctions

Jim, JJ & Jordan at Orcas Island Pottery

Hubby Jim is not only great with the grand kids, he's terrific in the kitchen and makes the best salsa ever. We eat it fresh in 1-2 days. We’ve given up the fattening corn chips as the dippers, and now use celery sticks, red pepper strips and cucumber slices, for dipping scoops. This salsa recipe is loaded with antioxidants, vitamin C and great tasting low calorie nutrition. It’s also good as a flavorful topper on egg dishes, salads, or a baked potato. If you must have chips, try making the low calorie, no fat alternative homemade, fresh baked pita chips recipe below.

Sassy Salsa

Finely chop the following ingredients:

2 cups tomatoes                       1 cup onion

½ green bell pepper                  ½ cup cilantro

½ -1 jalapeno pepper (results in mild to hot)

1 large clove garlic

Add the fresh squeezed juice from:

½ lemon                       ½ lime

Salt to taste with 1tsp to 1 tbsp salt

Jim mixes all this together with a handy hand crank chopping device we picked up at the fair years ago. Hand chopping and mixing works great for this recipe. We learned to not use a blender to chop and mix the salsa as it pulverizes the ingredients into a runny mess that is only good to drink, but not good for dipping.

This is really popular at family and workplace gatherings. The fresher the ingredients, the better the taste and texture.

Fresh Baked Pita Chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the whole pitas into 8 wedges. Separate the two layers of each pita. Place the 16 triangles in a single layer on a nonstick cookie sheet. Bake until crisp - about 9 or 10 minutes. This recipe serves 2 people, 8 pita chips each. They are perfect warm from the oven and heaped with fresh salsa. Half of a medium, 6-inch diameter Pita bread averages only 62 calories. Check the nutrition label on the pack you buy.

You can add seasoning variations to these by lightly spraying them with PAM and sprinkling with Italian seasonings, salt, garlic, or other favorite spices.

JULY 4th FOOD & FREEDOM

Holidays and a bountiful feast seem to go hand-in-hand, or hand-to-mouth in my case. This Independence Day I decided to celebrate not only our nation's freedom, but make a stand for freedom from my addictive and harmful binge eating habits. You'll have to read to the end to see if I won my battle and lost, or lost my battle and gained.

I set my TOPS SMART goal for the week, planning for the temptations the holiday and our mini vacation to Orcas Island would bring. I determined to stick with my sensible eating plan of 1200-1500 calories a day, and enjoy being with family more than eating food.

I set the stage for success by packing the ice chest with healthy food choices and planning our meal menus ahead of time.We had lots of bottled water in the car for the long drive and ferry trip to the island.

Rather than planning to lay around, read, relax, and snack nonstop as we often do, I filled our days with active adventures with the grandchildren, parade viewing, beach combing, pottery making, playground and tree house exploration.

I did make a monstrous pot of whole wheat spaghetti for the gang to enjoy, but consciously limited my portion size, bypassed the garlic bread, and had a healthy salad serving.

Instead of pigging out on gargantuan bowls of ice cream as I usually would, we bought a carton of ice cream sandwiches, only enough for me to have one after they were shared with all, and I stayed within my exchanges and calories for the day.

The result was a very nice loss at my weekly TOPS weigh in last night, bringing me to a grand total loss of 27 pounds over the last 5 weeks since starting the program. The change in my measurements over these 1st 5 weeks on TOPS is 2 inches off my chest, 6 inches off my waist, 5 inches off my hips.

A very nice start in my battle to win the war over obesity and find freedom from fat.