Baked Eggs with Spinach

Baked Eggs and Spinach

This weekend was my wonderful husband's birthday.  To celebrate, I ordered some picnic food and and rented a boat down at Newport Beach.  We invited his parents and siblings and their children.  I prepared quite a lot of food.  I brought some Vietnamese Spring Rolls, Egg rolls, Bahn Mi (Vietnamese Sandwiches), Noodles with seafood, some snacks for the kids and fruits.  Yep!  Silly me.  I brought non-Medifast-Friendly foods.  To add insult to the injury, I was so busy that morning, I forgot to pack myself food.  Oh and did I mention, I brought chocolate cupcakes as well?

We got on the boat with only 100 calories of cappuccino in me that morning and it was already 12 noon.  I was hungry. You know where this is going, right?  My best efforts at trying to to pick the shrimps and pork off the spring rolls were in vain.  I finally succumbed to the temptation and ate two egg rolls.  Wait.  It didn't end there.  I also had myself some watermelon and noodles.  Oh, the shame!  It was my first non-OP day since I started this program so I figured it'll be okay.  I'm 2.5 lbs away from goal so I thought it would be okay.  I'll just skip some of the Medifast meals.  I thought it would be okay.

For dinner, we had so much left over that I decided to take all the meat out of the food and make myself another small Lean and Green.  I hate to see food go to waste.  I thought it would be okay.

The next day, I weighed myself and I gained 2.2 lbs! What?!?! Really?  Now, I'm racking my brain trying to figure this out.  I didn't eat much, I thought.  Is it the lack of water?  Is it the lack of vegetables?  Is it the two diet cokes?  Is the sugar in the watermelon?  What happened????  My first infraction and I paid dearly since it took me 10 days to lose those 2.2 lbs.

Long story aside, this morning, I wanted to eat my Lean and Green for breakfast so I would have the whole day to burn it.  I prepared myself a classic French breakfast of baked eggs with spinach.  I would recommend possibly adding some tomatoes for an extra serving of vegetable but that's your call.  I didn't add it because I always like eating my tomato serving with my soup which I planned to eat this afternoon.

When you make this, don't be fooled by the orange color of the egg, it's actually well cooked.  If you're in doubt, poke it with a fork to see if your eggs run.

Medifast Lean and Green Recipe
PAM Cooking Spray
2 cups Spinach1 tsp Unsalted butter
2 eggs
1/2 tsp kosher salt or sea salt
1/8 tsp ground pepper2 tsp half and half

Serves 2

1. Boil water  over high heat.  Drop in spinach until it's bright green.  About 2 minutes. Drain and immediately rinse under cold water to stop cooking. 
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (use toaster oven if available)
3. Spray ramekins with PAM Cooking Spray
4. Fix a bed of spinach on the ramekins.  Add 1 tsp of unsalted butter.
5. Add 2 eggs on top.
6. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
7. Sprinkle Add 2 tsp of half and half
8. Bake for approximately 15 - 20 minutes.

Not Quite Pasta (A Low-carb Pasta Substitute)

Spaghetti Squash (Pasta Substitute)

I've been on this diet for awhile now and I'm starting to miss pasta and rice a lot.  So, I think it's about time to experiment with some substitutes.  So I visited the squash and zucchini section of the produce section yesterday and I thought I'd start with spaghetti squash.

The result was delicious.  It's a bit sweeter than real pasta and in my opinion, more pleasant.  This is a bit different from my typical quick-to-fix meals.  But preparation only involved cutting the squash in half.  The rest is waiting for it to cook.  I topped my "pasta" with grilled chicken.  For sauce, I used whatever I can find that doesnt involve cooking -- lemon, butter and parmesan cheese.  Voila!  What a satisfying meal!  The only bad thing was I ate all of it in less than 15 minutes recommended by Medifast ... oh well ...

The great thing about spaghetti squash is the low calorie.  1 cup is bout 42 calories only.  1 cup is a huge serving (see pic above)

Instructions:

Preheat oven 375 degrees

Cut Squash in half

Spray pan lightly with oil.  Place 2 halves face down.  Bake for 1 hour.

Enjoy!

Just scoop out all the contents to get your "pasta"

Top with your favorite meat or use your favorite
pasta sauce

Steamed Tilapia with Spinach, Tomatoes and Capers

I grew up eating Tilapia.   This fish absorbs flavor very well.  My mom used to pick up some at the fish market when I was little.  They fry it there for her so that when she got home, dinner was ready.  We ate the fried tilapia with some fish sauce and tomatoes.  That to me was the taste of home.

Later, during my college years, I favored steamed tilapia over the fried version.  We would order it from the local chinese restaurant and it would be steamed with soy sauce and sesame oil and topped with shreds of green onion.  It tasted so good with rice or noodles.

However it was served, I was used to picking the tilapia from the tank and getting it cooked right away.  While I was shopping the other day, I found frozen tilapia.  I had my reservations because I was used to the fresh tilapia I grew up with but I went ahead and took it home with me.  Each one of them is individually wrapped and weighed 3 oz uncooked.

Medifast allows for 7 ozs of cooked tilapia so I cooked two of them at a time as you will notice in the picture above, it is quite a hefty serving.  

Medifast Lean and Green Recipe
1/4 tsp chili pepper flakes
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
7 oz tilapia filets
1 cup spinach
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp juice of lemon
1 tbsp capers

1. On a skillet, boil the water and add chili pepper.
2. Once boiling, scatter the grape tomatoes.
3. Put the tilapia on top the tomatoes.  Lower heat and cover for about 3 minutes.
4. Add spinach on top of the tilapia and cover to continue steaming for another 3 minutes.
5. Move all of it to a platter.
6. Turn off heat and put butter on the skillet
7. Add lemon
8. Add capers and mix
9. Put the butter, lemon and capers mix on top of the your meal.
10. Serve.

Wikipedia says this about Tilapia:

Tilapia have very low levels of mercury as they are fast-growing and short-lived with a primarily vegetarian diet, and thus do not accumulate mercury found in prey.


Tilapia is a low total fat, low saturated fat, low calorie, low carbohydrate and low sodium protein source. It is also an excellent source of phosphorus, niacin, selenium, vitamin B12 and potassium.

Many articles I've read on the web describe Tilapia as a very nutritious seafood.  However, please be aware of the following study as well:

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2008) — Farm-raised tilapia, one of the most highly consumed fish in America, has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and, perhaps worse, very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.