Guiltless Pleasure

I was in the mood for the other white meat this evening.  Most people associate pork with fat and calories and virtually unhealthy food.  This is NOT correct.  Pork is a very lean meat depending on the cut that you buy.  Pork Tenderloin is virtually fat free.  The same remains true for pork chops, hence tonight’s meal.  I decided to make grilled french cut white wine apple glazed pork chops with brown rice pilaf and red delicious apple white wine sauce (the red stuff).  I started out by peeling and dicing roughly 1 1/2 cups of red delicious apples and reducing them in 1 1/2 cups of white wine.  I added sugar to create the glaze.  YES I know, sugar isn’t terribly good for you but its not bad either.  Sugar is important because it (with the wine) creates the simple syrup that I needed i.e. glaze.  No calorie sweetener would not give me the same effect without adding cornstarch.  

The rice is a simple pilaf cooked in low sodium chicken broth with some sauted garlic, parsley and a small bit of kosher salt and ground pepper.  The sauce is left over glaze a little more apple and other seasonings and 1/2 tsp of cornstarch to give me the shine and consistency I needed.  The meal was service for two and was in total only 9 grams of fat!!!

DESSERT!!! Dessert was an off the top of my head type of deal but I must admit there was some inspiration from my wonderful new friend Chrystal of the Duo Dishes.  She made an amazing cake with a whipped bailey’s filling that even gave you a little buzz.  I decided to take her creation and make it my own.  I decided to make what I call my espresso irish mint cream mousse.  It’s simply that.  I made a guiltless brownie flavored cookie topped with an espresso irish mint cream mousse.  Garnish with a fresh mint leaf and cocoa powder dust and voila! This dessert was only 3GRAMS OF FAT!!! It’s not a secret but you can make cookies and brownies without using oil and eggs…i’ll clue you in on that later

Every Sunday I entertain friends; usually a small dinner party of sorts.  My original plan was to do an Italian theme.   Appetizer was somewhat easy and the main course was planned out as well.  Of course, I planned desert but as expected plans fell through.  I planned to cheat and buy a premade tiramisu.  There was not a single premade tiramisu to be found.  The mozzarella sticks with sun-dried tomato basil pesto were done and the lasagna was in the oven.  I had less than 10 minutes before guest arrived and NO desert!?! So I start thinking..”what can I do, what can I do?” so I decided on Bananas Foster.  I absolutely love to make things with what I already have.  Of course the golden rule of entertaining is to NEVER use your guests as guinea pigs to try out your experiments without testing it yourself.  This however is NOT my rule at all.  I love to experiment and test it out on my friends.  They’re the people I can expect to be honest with me no matter what.

I had some puff pastry sheets, almonds and nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread).  A quick trip to the store to grab some bananas and whatever else I could pair this with.  Clearly this is guilty pleasure and I didn’t have time to head to the liquor store to make true bananas foster so the next quest was how to make this dish without adding on the pounds.  Bananas foster is usually made by sauteing bananas in butter with some cinnamon and sugar then adding rum to the mix (obviously cooking the liquor off).  Then its served with a nice heaping mound of ice cream.  Its time to improvise.  Thus not so bananas foster with a twist was born.  I sauted the bananas in a tablespoon of smart balance butter with a dash of cinnamon and no calorie sweetener.  To replace the ice cream I bought some sugar free instant banana cream pudding and whipped it with egg whites and yogurt to create this airy creamy whipped goodness with a hint of banana.  For garnish I put some triangular puff pastry topped with the hazelnut spread and crushed almonds around the plate.  Great healthy version of bananas foster…

Ever have one of those days where you want to do a nice dinner but you have limited funds.  You scrounge around the kitchen trying to find anything on deck that you can turn into something tasty.  Try doing that while trying to eat healthy meals; its definitely not an easy task.  Here’s a list of what I had:  Almonds

Rice

Butter

Parsley

leftover heavy cream

Apple Juice

Apple Juice?!?! WHAT THE HECK can I do with Apple juice?  Note* this is 100% apple juice and unfiltered…no sugar or preservatives etc.  Anyway, I racked my brain then it hit me!  I love apple glazed pork tenderloin why not branch away from that theme.  Thus my creation was born.  Smoked garlic Peppercorn Pork Tenderloin with Almond rice and apple butter cream sauce.  I had no idea if this would work or if it would turn out correctly but it was worth a try.  

YEP! thats right, I used apple juice in/as a sauce.  Apple juice started out as my base then to compliment the almonds in the rice I decided I’d add just a touch of almond extract to the sauce.  Next I added the cold cream (reserving a small amount to blend with the cornstarch).  A little kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, apple zest (basically grated apple without the peel), butter and voila! Apple butter cream sauce was born.  Give it a try me and my household absolutely LOVED it.  Best part…only 7g of fat and 150 calories!!