Do Frenchwomen Stay Thin?

Clotilde DuSolier of Chocolate and Zucchini said in this blog entry that Frenchwomen generally stay thin by exercising portion control and doing a fair amount of walking. She does really seem to love her cakes, and she looks thin, so it must be working for her.

One of her favorites is Gâteau au Yaourt. The recipe doesn't read like a diet-book special, does it?

 Ingredients   Total
qty unit item prep type DASH servings

2.00 large eggs  meat 2
1.00 cup whole milk ygrt dairy 1
1.00 cup sugar  sweet 16
0.50 cup oil  fat 24
2.00 cups all-purps flour grain 15.625
1.00 Tbs baking powder   
1.00 tsp vanilla extract   
1.00 Tbs light rum   
----
1.00 cup whole milk ygrt fat 1.714285714
2.00 large eggs   fat 2

I've listed the yogurt and eggs twice, so I can count the extra bit of fat in the whole milk yogurt and whole eggs (instead of just the whites). It turns out to be a lot less than the 1/2 cup of oil, of course.

Mix it all up, bake it in a 10-inch cake pan, and cut it into 16 slices (59g or about 2oz each), and you get

Nutritional Summary
Servings: 16: Serving Size: 1/16 of cake: Calories: 187: Fat(g): 8: Sodium (g): 83

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 0.1: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 1.7: Sweets: 1.0
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.1: Fats: 1.7: Sweets: 1.0

Which is not too bad for a bite of a "fluffy, cloud-like and moist affair, not too sweet, and just perfect for any time of day". Imagine this cake as a substitute for a slice of toast (1 oz) with 2 teaspoons of butter and a tablespoon of jam. Unless the bread, jam, and butter are all truly exceptional, I think I might make the trade. Or step up the exercise.

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Spaghetti with Mini Meatballs and Chunky Sauce

I have settled on a hearty 2/3 cup helping of sauce, for a serving of 2 vegetables (plus one of oil). And meatballs. They always go over well with the kids. I form and freeze 3-oz patties of lean ground turkey, so I can pull out the right amount whenever I need it. These are better than the salty pre-made turkey burgers. If I don't think to defrost them the night before or in the morning, I can microwave-defrost while I chop the vegetables.

One ounce of dry spaghetti is a serving of grain, about the same as a slice of bread, and cooks up to about 1/2 cup. So I measure about 2 ounces of spaghetti per person. For a family of four, that's half a box. For 7, that's nearly the whole box. There might be some left over.

I like to serve this with a romaine salad or steamed broccoli.

-= Exported from BigOven =-

Spaghetti With Mini Meatballs And Chunky Sauce

Spaghetti with quick and easy meatballs and a hearty, chunky sauce

Recipe By: Family Nutritionist
Serving Size: 7
Cuisine: Italian American
Main Ingredient: Tomatoes
Categories: DASH, LOW SODIUM, Kid Friendly, Low Fat

-= Ingredients =-
~~ Mini Meatballs ~~
21 ounce Lean Ground turkey
1 tablespoon Fennel Seed
~~ Sauce ~~
2 small onions ; chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water
8 fluid oz no-salt-added tomato sauce ; (one small can)
6 fluid oz no-salt-added tomato paste ; (one can)
2 medium tomatoes ; chopped (1 1/3 cup total)
1 1/4 cups zucchini ; sliced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
~~ Pasta ~~
14 oz Spaghetti

-= Instructions =-
Combine ground turkey with fennel seeds. Form into small meatballs. Twenty-one 1-ounce meatballs means 3 per serving.

In a medium skillet or saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Sauté meatballs, turning as soon as they develop a firm "crust", until browned on all sides. Remove meatballs from pan.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in same pan. Sauté onions, garlic, and zucchini in oil for 5 minutes on medium heat.

Add one cup of water to the pan. Raise heat. Use spatula to loosen carmelized glaze from bottom of pan. Add remaining sauce ingredients and simmer covered for 45 minutes.

Return meatballs to pan for last 10 minutes of cooking.

Meanwhile, prepare pasta.

A serving of 1 cup cooked spaghetti, 2/3 cup sauce, and 3 oz of meatballs will provide:

Nutritional Summary
Servings: 7: Serving Size: 2/3 cup: Calories: 299: Fat(g): 14: Sodium (g): 166

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 1.9: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish: 1.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.0
USDA: Vegetables: 1.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.0: Dairy: 0.0: Grains: 1.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 1.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.0


** This recipe can be pasted into BigOven without retyping. BigOven.com ID= 160557 **
** Easy recipe software. Try it free at: http://www.bigoven.com **

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How does your Spaghetti Sauce Serve You?

Calculating USDA or DASH servings in a dish is not rocket science. For example, here's how I work through a recipe for an Italian-American style main-course pasta dish, full of chunky vegetables, accompanied by browned mini-meatballs. It is a hearty and satisfying dish.

Sounds like a good idea! But how many servings of meat, vegetables, grain, fat come in each serving? What size is a serving?

First, the sauce. The inspiration -- Vegetarian Spaghetti Sauce -- comes from the NIH's Heart Healthy Recipes pages and also appears in the DASH Diet book. I used the USDA National Nutrient Database for the "official" sizes of the whole onions and tomatoes, and to translate that into cups of chopped vegetables.

Vegetarian Spaghetti Sauce

2 small onions (2.5 oz each); chopped (7/8 cup total)
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces tomato sauce, no salt added ; (one small can)
6 ounces tomato paste, no salt added ; (one can)
2 medium tomatoes (2 3/5" dia, 1.6 oz each); chopped (1 1/3 cup total)
1 1/4 cups zucchini ; sliced
1 cup water
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil

Total Fat: 6 teaspoons -- 6 DASH servings
7/8 cup onions
3 tablespoons garlic
1 cup tomato sauce
3 x 3/4 cup tomato paste (because paste is 3 times as concentrated as sauce)
1 1/3 cup tomatoes
1 1/4 cup zucchini

Total Vegetables: 6.77 cups -- 13.54 DASH servings

By my reckoning, if we divide that 6 ways, everyone gets 2.3 half-cup servings of vegetables and 1 serving of fat. If we divide it 7 ways, It's still about 2 servings of vegetables and nearly 1 of fat.

But what size is that serving? According to the NIH recipe, that's about 4.5 cups (6 3/4 cup servings) after cooking. Considering there are 6.77 cups of vegetables and 1 cup of water in there, that might seem surprising, but there is an awful lot of empty space in a cup of chopped vegetables (see You CAN put 2 cups of vegetables in a 1 cup bag and How big is your head? for an example), and you can count on some of the water to evaporate during cooking. I have never actually measured the volume of the sauce after I've made it. It's messy and I don't have a measuring cup that big. For now, I'll stick with the published values.

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Ricotta is Good

.. and it is not as high in dairy fat. I am sure this recipe is not as smooth and buttery-luscious as the mascarpone version, but probably still delicious. It needs testing.

I could substititute 2 tablespoons of whole-milk ricotta for
Nutritional Summary
Servings: 4: Serving Size: 1/4 of total: Calories: 273: Fat(g): 4: Sodium (g): 35

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.6: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.9
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.3: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.9: Sweets: 0.9

Or two tablespoons of part-skim ricotta cheese for
Nutritional Summary
Servings: 4: Serving Size: 1/4 of total: Calories: 261: Fat(g): 3: Sodium (g): 48

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.6: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.5: Sweets: 0.9
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.3: Dairy: 0.3: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 0.5: Sweets: 0.9

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Mascarpone is as Buttery as Butter

Since the photo of Prunes in Port Wine with Mascarpone shows 3 or 4 prunes, I'll assume the sauce is meant to serve 4, and give everyone a tablespoon of Mascarpone. Sounds like a very light bite.

Prunes stewed in Port with Mascarpone
Serving Size: 4

1 1/2 cups Port wine
2 whole Cloves
1 whole Cinnamon stick
1/8 cup Sugar
12 whole Prunes
1 1/2 Tablespoons Lemon juice ; (about 1/2 lemon)
4 tablespoons Mascarpone

I found nutritional data for mascarpone on the BelGioso website. Turns out a tablespoon of Mascarpone (28g) has 13g of fat. That's a little more than a tablespoon of butter! That's 3 servings of fat. And it doesn't supply enough calcium to count as a dairy product. I used wine, dessert, sweet to represent the Port. It's got 2.3g of sugar per fluid oz. A serving of sugar is one tablespoon, granuated (12.6 oz).

I used BigOven to work out the Nutritional Summary, and EXCEL to do my arithmetic for the serving statistics.

Nutritional Summary
Servings: 4: Serving Size: 1/4 of total: Calories: 339: Fat(g): 13: Sodium (g): 24

Food Group Serving(s)
DASH: Vegetables: 0: Fruits/Juices: 0.6: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish: 0.0: Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 2.8: Sweets: 0.9
USDA: Vegetables: 0.0: Fruits/Juices: 0.3: Dairy: 0.1: Grains: 0.0: Meat/Fish/Seeds: 0.0: Fats: 2.8: Sweets: 0.9

Not such a light bite! To wedge this one in my daily calorie budget, I'd need to eat my toast and my salad without butter or oil, and then do it again tomorrow. And there's barely enough on the plate to taste it! Maybe I'm not going to rush out to buy mascarpone just yet.

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Prunes in Port Wine and Mascarpone

A side trip through Starling Fitness brought me to this recipe.

It's something a little bit different. I HAD been thinking about poached pears, but what I've got is this bottle of a local varietal wine in my refrigerator. Concord grape. I can't figure out what to do with it -- so foxy, so sweet, so "Welch's grape juice". I think it would overpower pears. Maybe it would pair better with the prunes. Maybe not.

I need to figure out who carries mascarpone before my next regularly-scheduled grocery-shopping trip. I also want to figure out the nutritional value of this dessert.

I wonder if I can count 1 1/2 cups of Port as 2 DASH servings of fruit juice? It IS fruit juice, after all, isn't it?

-= Exported from BigOven =-
Prunes stewed in Port with Mascarpone

Warm, sweet fruit and cool, creamy mascarpone -- a combination even a lifelong prunophobe couldn't resist.

Recipe By: Josh Friedland, http://www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2006/01/
Serving Size: 1
Cuisine:
Main Ingredient:


-= Ingredients =-
1 1/2 cups Port wine
2 whole Cloves
1 whole Cinnamon stick
1/8 cup Sugar
12 whole Prunes
1 1/2 Tablespoons Lemon juice ; about 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 tablespoons Mascarpone

-= Instructions =-
Reduce the port over medium heat. As the alcohol burns away, add the spices and sugar.
When the port is reduced to 1/2 its original volume, strain out the spices and add the prunes. Continue to cook until the sauce becomes a thick syrup.
Add the lemon juice. If the syrup is too thick, dilute with a small amount of water.
Refrigerate until desert time. Reheat the prunes and sauce.
Spread the mascarpone onto the middle of a plate (or, if you want to be fancy, form quenelles with the cheese), and layer the prunes on top, spooning the sweet sauce over and around the mascarpone.

** This recipe can be pasted into BigOven without retyping. **
** Easy recipe software. Try it free at: http://www.bigoven.com **

Photo credit: Josh Friedland, http://www.thefoodsection.com/foodsection/2006/01/
prunes mascarpone Dessert

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