Portobello Pizzeti

The Portobello mushroom makes a great platform for building a healthy little personal pizza.  They are large enough to hold toppings and meaty enough to withstand baking without falling apart.  Plus...they are delicious! One portobello has as much potassium as a large banana.  For those with high blood pressure potassium plays a crucial role in escorting sodium out of the body and thereby helping to decrease blood pressure.  If you take a NON potassium sparing diuretic, chronically low potassium levels can cause Hypokalemia.  Potassium rich foods include dark leafy greens, mushrooms, oranges, legumes, tomatoes, kiwi, peaches and bananas of course!  Not that this article is specifically about potassium but...one of the best sources of potassium and my personal favorite is young green coconut water.  I'll take that on in another post soon! 

As to our recipe...there is no grain crust for these pizzeti or "little pizzas".  The mushroom caps are the "crust".  Filled with low fat, high protein ground white turkey and low sodium, lycopene rich marinara sauce; they certainly aren't missing any of the flavor!  I use reduced fat (organic) mozzarella cheese but if you have dairy allergies you could substitute a rice milk based cheese product.  Check the label for the words casein, caseinates or whey even on cheeses that claim to be non-dairy.  These ARE milk proteins and will aggrivate your dairy allergy.

Portobello Pizzeti

8 extra large organic portobello caps

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 lb. organic ground turkey breast

1 medium onion, diced

1 medium green bell pepper, diced

2 cloves pressed garlic

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon dried Italian Herb blend

1 1/2 cups Muir Glen organic Marinara Sauce

1 cup organic reduced fat shredded mozzarella cheese

*I always have homemade marinara in my freezer but I realize everyone doesn't so I wrote the recipe using Muir Glen for the sake of figuring out the nutritonal content of the dish.

**Using a dark/white ground turkey blend will significantly affect the fat content of this dish

Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat and add olive oil.  Break up ground turkey into the hot skillet and cook until most of the pink is gone.  Stir in chopped onions, bell peppers and garlic.  Saute 3-5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Season with black pepper and Italian herbs.

Stir 1 cup of the marinara sauce into the turkey mixture.

Set the prepared turkey aside and clean the mushrooms.  Wipe with a damp towel to remove any loose dirt.  Remove stems and scrape out dark "gills" with a spoon.

Place prepared musroom caps in baking dishes.  You will probably need two to hold all 8 mushrooms.  Divide turkey mixture evenly among the 8 portobellos. 

Use the remaining 1/2 cup marinara sauce to top the filled mushrooms.

Sprinkle each "little pizza" with 1/8 cup of shredded reduced fat mozzarella cheese.

Bake uncovered in preheated 350F oven for 25 minutes.  Enjoy!

Each Portobello "Pizza" has 170 calories, 4.5g fat, 250mg sodium, 11g carbs, 3g fiber and 20g protein

I generally serve 2 per person with a nice green salad

A 2-mushroom serving has a whopping 1000mg of potassium!

(c) copyright Jill Anderson

The Homegrown Gourmet

Pudding It All Together

I mentioned yesterday that if this turned out good, I would post the recipe today.  You never know until you test since the reduced fat/no fat dairy products COULD affect the texture of the finished dish.  Plus, I'm always looking for ways to get the refined sugar out of desserts.  Since I don't advocate the use of artificial sweeteners (even though we all manage to get a hit of sucralose or aspartame from SOMEWHERE), playing with fruit purees or stevia based sweeteners may affect the quality of the finished product too.  I generally have good luck but every now and then even the best cooks drop a culinary bomb! 

I've been lucky lately with the stevia blends.  I haven't tried baking with them yet so I don't know how well they'll do.  However, for puddings or fruit sauces or things of that nature that you can sweeten AFTER removing from the heat...they are working out great.  Once I've gotten over my kickboxing induced impairment and I can actually STAND without supporting myself on the counter, I plan to get in there and bake up something with some Truvia in it and see what happens.  I'm feeling rather scone-ish at the moment.  Oh rahhhther scone-ish...with a spot of jam and a steaming cup' o good Earl Grey!  It must wait until I can get off this blasted heating pad though.

In the meantime, these puddings I've been whipping up are quick and easy.  Their low calorie, fat and sugar counts make them even more appealing.  Plus, I am enourmously proud of the fact that they are NOT all junked up with sucralose and aspartame.  Oh, I don't know...I suppose if you don't mind a little chlorine with your sugar (sucralose) or some formaldahyde or ethinol (breakdown by-products of aspartame) in your chocolate pudding then knock yourself out (literally).  I digress.....

Back to the pudding....or as I said in the title....Pudding it all together.  I am discovering that using such greatly reduced butterfat products can prove challenging to texture and mouthfeel more than taste.  Sometimes you have to take a different approach in technique.  The classic Italian version of sweet polenta pudding has sweetened mascarpone either dolloped on top or lightly swirled through the warm pudding.  Well sure...with the cream and whole milk thats already in the body, the mascarpone is rather like "icing on the cake".  Its a stand alone ingredient.  With the lightened version, I found that actually melting the low fat whipped cream cheese into the hot polenta gave it the creaminess that it lacked from just being cooked in skim milk.  The drizzle of honey in the classic is yummy but superfilous.  The pudding is sweet enough without it.  Yes, you could a spoonful of all-fruit natural jam swirled through your pudding instead of my lighter strawberry coulis but again, we are back to calories and sugar that you really don't need to make this dessert work.  I actually preferred the simple strained strawberrie sauce.  The fresh, ever so slightly tart tang of the berries was a perfect foil for the thick, creamy polenta.  I've gone and made myself hungry now!  In any event...try it and see for yourself. 

Creamy Vanilla Polenta Pudding with Fresh Strawberry Coulis

2 cups organic fat free milk
pinch kosher salt
4 teaspoons Florida organic sugar
1 vanilla bean split and scraped
1/2 cup (dry) non-gmo fine grain polenta
3 packets stevia blend sweetener (I use Truvia)
4 tablespoons low fat whipped cream cheese ( I use weight watcher's brand)
2 cups fresh hulled strawberries
1-2 additonal packets of stevia sweetener

In a 1 1/2 quart saucepan combine the fat free milk, kosher salt, sugar and vanilla bean.  When mixture begins to boil; gradually stir in polenta.  Cook 3-4 minutes; stirring constantly until polenta is thickened.

Remove from heat and discard vanilla pod.  Stir in 3 packets of Truvia and the low fat cream cheese.   Mix well; until cheese is melted.  You may add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract for extra vanilla flavor if desired.

Divide among 6 dessert dishes or ramekins and set aside while you prepare strawberry topping.

Place strawberries in blender or food processor and process until smooth.  You may need to add a few drops of water to help blend.  Strain out seeds and sweeten with 1-2 addtional packets of stevial sweetener. 
Swirl strawberry coulis into the warm polenta puddings.

Makes 6 servings
Each serving:  105 calories, 18g carbs, .5g fat, 1g fiber, 3g protein, 75mg sodium

*These puddings are so low calorie/fat that you can afford a nice dollop of low fat or fat free Greek style vanilla yogurt on top!  Don't forget to add the extra calories though.

(c) copyright Jill Anderson
The Homegrown Gourmet