I was so very pleased with how the lasagna I cooked this morning turned out that I decided not to wait until dinner to eat some - it was a fantastic lunch. It made 8 large servings at about 550 calories each - not diet food, certainly, but nothing like the sort of mega-calorie-and-fat lasagna monstrosity that you would get at a restaurant. I also thought it was yummier and appreciated not feeling ill or waddling to the sofa and falling down on it in a heap afterwards.
I used 1 pound of ground beef, a bunch of crimini* mushrooms Robert bought at the farmers market, and a homemade pesto using the last of my thyme and oregano mixed in with basil from the farmers market (my basil has already died and I know the other herbs will not survive my leaving them for over a week; Leo took one for the team and vacuumed up in a couple of minutes the two handfuls of mint I culled from the plant this afternoon - such a sacrifice). It was supposed to have spinach also, but it had gone sort of funky-smelling so I threw it away.
* Robert just saw this and said, They're crimini, not baby bella? I did an image search and found a picture of crimini mushrooms and indeed, they looked like ours. A further search indicated that baby bella and crimini mushrooms are the same thing.
By the way, seeing the nutritional analysis on those restaurant items, I feel even more smug and self-satisfied by always getting the Simple Salmon with Asparagus at Macaroni Grill (590 calories) than before. I usually eat about half of it, and take the rest home. Of course, I also generally eat about an entire Peasant Bread loaf, coming in at 520 calories, by myself also. Oh, with about a tablespoon of olive oil altogether. Still, I think any absolutely indulgent meal eaten at an Italian restaurant that comes in under 1,000 calories is near-miraculous. It's just a good thing I don't do it very often.
No comments:
Post a Comment