Summer is coming! Soon it will get too hot for me to use my oven much. So it’s time to break out the Doctor’s summer menu! That means….outdoor grilling, stovetop cooking, toaster oven, and stir frying outdoors. And the slow cooker. A vegetable may appear on the menu from time to time, if I can stand the excitement. Bacon may go on vacation for a while. Exhibit A, pictured below, is chicken fajitas with peppers and onions cooked in cream sauce. I’ll explain the calorie strategy below.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – catered – potatoes and eggs (300)
- 300 calories
Lunch – catered food – burrito bowl with beans, rice, chicken, and beef (500)
- 500 calories
Dinner – chicken fajitas with peppers and onions in cream sauce, with sour cream (500)
- 500 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80); Kentucky Legend ham slices (200); Nestle Lil Drums chocolate ice cream cone (120)
- 400 calories
Total for the day: 1700 calories (limit 1800)
Last day of catered food
Yesterday and today I was at a technical workshop and had catered food as part of the package. It was very tasty catering. But it was hard to have a strategy besides “don’t have seconds” because I couldn’t really measure or weigh anything. The only other trick was “don’t have more than the thin people are having”.
For dinner today, I made one of my favorite summer dishes, chicken fajitas with peppers and onions cooked in cream sauce. I’ll include the recipe on a separate page later. This is a fantastic dish and very quick to make. Besides being really tasty, it can be very low calorie. The peppers are seared under the broiler. (The broiler is only on for a few minutes so it doesn’t heat the whole kitchen.) The broiled peppers are then skinned and reheated in a skillet with seared onions, garlic, and spices, then half-and-half and lime juice are added and cooked until well thickened. Separately, you can cook chicken breast strips in a fajita marinade, but today I took a shortcut and used Perdue precooked chicken strips with fajita flavoring already added.
This dish lends itself well to calorie counting. The entire package of chicken was 360 calories. One pound of poblano peppers and onions together, with cooking oil, are about 200 calories, and the half-and-half is 160 calories. The flour tortillas are 140 calories each (!), so I broke them in half and had three little burritos like the one pictured above. This recipe makes a fair amount and I had this much of it:
- 1.5 flour tortillas = 210 calories
- 6 ounces Perdue precooked chicken strips = 150 calories
- A third of the peppers and onions in cream sauce = 120 calories
- A bit of crumbled Feta cheese on top = 20 calories.
If I had three whole flour tortillas, I would have added 210 calories to the total. But all three meals I had today were great, and because of that my body is happy with eating less than 1800 calories.
And since I am focused on making sure I am hungry for breakfast, I want to avoid eating any more tonight.
-The Doctor