Inspiration in high fat meals

One of my goals with Sundays Off is not just to celebrate food on Sundays, but also to figure out how to make Monday through Saturday work as well.  I love food shows, Chuck's Day Off on the Food Channel is on off my favorites; but like all the shows you cannot eat that way every day, or you will weigh 600 lbs.  They should tell you that- like the warning on wine bottles about pregnancy, well the shows should have a warning shot before they begin.  There was a whole thing on kimchi on one of the recent airings.  Now I am nonplused when it comes to kimchi, but he rolled it up with some other stuff in spring roll wrappers and fried them.  I love spring rolls!  Lighter than egg rolls, pretty to look at, etc.  Only drawback, I like them fried-there is another drawback, more on that in a minute.

When I was at the natural food store Saturday, I found Vietnamese rice paper wrappers.  Score, grabbed them.  I picked up mushrooms, I don't really care for straw mushrooms, I don't think they bring anything to the party, so I grabbed porcini and sliced them thin.  I grabbed matchstick carrots and swiss chard.  I sauteed everything with thinly sliced onions with Olive Oil Pam spray threw in seasame seeds and let it cool.

I opend up the rice paper wrappers, and started the process.  These are hard, fragile round disks.  They have to be soaked for a minute to soften, do one at a time because they will also become water thickener if they sit too long in the water.  I rolled them like an egg roll and put them on a pizza pan sprayed with more Olive Oil Pam.  Then I sprayed the the top of them lightly.  Popped in a 400 degree oven and let them go.  I only turned them once.  Two side were nice and crispy, two sides were soft.  So the experiment was 50% successful.  Next time, I will turn then more often so that all sides crisp up.

They were yummy.  I also served brown rice pearls cooked in water that I steeped a small piece of lemon grass in and then I stir fried (did you get your wok yet?  BUY ONE) onions, mushrooms, spinach, and shrimp in peanut oil that I had steeped garlic cloves (paper on so the garlic does not burn).  I love shrimp for weeknight's- lots of food little points, its a great combination.

Tonight I am taking out the pressure cooker an doing something with the beef brisket I had in the freezer from a couple of Farmer's Markets ago.  I don't see a lot of visible fat on it, which is interesting, but this farm's beef is amazing.  Maybe Sunday will be all about Tauzel's beef...hmn, something to think about.  So today is all about 0 points, low fat protien, and extra activity.

Oh, the other drawback on the rice paper wrappers?  Super high in points, they are all starch- rice, tapioca, and corn- 3 of them have 28 points; I only had one!