Cooking in a Low-Calorie Kitchen: Preparing low-cal foods according to new guidelines, Making the best choices at the supermarket and Equipping your kitchen and considering low-cal cooking techniques.

Cooking in a Low-Calorie Kitchen

In This Chapter

� Preparing low-cal foods according to new guidelines

� Making the best choices at the supermarket

� Equipping your kitchen and considering low-cal cooking techniques

In the practical arena of your kitchen, the foods you buy and the techniques you use to prepare them bring your low-calorie diet to life. You make some of the most important decisions affecting the success of your diet from day to day in your kitchen.

Following a healthful low-calorie diet starts with your food choices, but it doesn’t end there. At home, you also have to make choices about how you’re going to prepare your food and which utensils and cooking techniques to use. At its best, low-calorie eating means eating simple foods that don’t require much fuss and bother.

This chapter helps you buy and prepare the best food for your low-calorie diet. You discover a little bit about stocking your kitchen with low-calorie cooking tools and appliances, many of which you probably already own. Finally, I explain how to utilize the best cooking techniques for your new low-calorie lifestyle.

Gearing Up for Low-Calorie Meals

Combined with the general basics of good nutrition found in Chapter 3, this section can help you decide exactly which foods you want (and don’t want) to keep in your low-calorie kitchen. Don’t forget that the object of this low- calorie diet is not only to help you lose weight but also to show you how to eat better. I want you to come away from this plan leaner, healthier, and much more knowledgeable about living a lower-calorie lifestyle.

In the following sections, I tell you how to incorporate the latest dietary guidelines into your diet, compare different types of foods you can eat, and explain the importance of making a shopping list so that you can stick to your food selections.

Following dietary guidelines

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently updated its dietary guidelines and released them in early 2005. For the first time ever, the guide- lines include the specific recommendation that overweight people gradually reduce their calorie intake and increase their physical activity for slow and steady weight loss.

In addition to eating fewer calories and becoming more active, the new guide- lines say that most Americans can benefit from making smarter food choices and balancing their daily diets to include an average of the following:

� 2 cups of fruit

� 21⁄2 cups of vegetables

� 3 or more 1-ounce servings of whole-grain products

� 3 cups a day of fat-free or lowfat milk or the equivalent in dairy products such as cheese and yogurt

Note: Dairy alternatives such as soy and rice beverages and products made from these beverages can take the place of milk and milk-based foods in a healthy diet if they’re enriched with nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D, and B vitamins normally supplied by dairy foods.

The amounts of food in the previous bulleted list are recommended on a standard 2,000-calorie diet, which government nutritionists generally use as a reference point. On a low-calorie diet plan, you may or may not meet these recommendations every day, and aiming for a little less in each category is okay. What’s most important is that you recognize that variety and balance are essential to the long-term success of a low-calorie diet and that these foods play essential roles in your long-term health. (See Chapter 3 for details on the importance of balance and variety in a low-calorie diet.)

Other recommendations in the guidelines that are more general but still very important to low-calorie dieters include

� Vary your protein choices with more fish, beans, peas, nuts, and seeds.

Meat isn’t your only choice for good sources of protein. Replacing some of the meat in your diet with seafood and non-meat sources of protein reduces fat and adds fiber and other nutrients not found in meat.

� When selecting meat, poultry, dry beans, and milk or milk products, make choices that are lean, lowfat, or fat-free. Most meat and dairy products that are lower in fat are also lower in calories than their higher- fat counterparts.

� Choose fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, and whole grains as often as possible. When you buy rice, pasta, breads, and cereals, check and compare the fiber content listed under “Total Carbohydrate” on the Nutrition Facts labels. (You can find more information about fiber and how much you need in Chapter 3 and more on the Nutrition Facts label in the “Reading the labels” section, later in this chapter.)

� Get the most nutrition out of the calories you consume. If you use your calories on a few high-calorie foods instead of dividing your calories among a variety of lower-calorie foods, you probably won’t be getting many of the nutrients your body needs to stay healthy.

You can read more about the USDA’s dietary guidelines and pyramid eating plan on its interactive Web site at www.mypyramid.gov. This site shows you how to personalize the general recommendations for eating well and balancing your diet. The site also gives suggestions for incorporating more exercise into your daily routine as a way of cutting calories.

Because the dietary guidelines now recommend that overweight people lose weight, they also say if you have a chronic medical condition or if you regularly take medication, you need to consult your physician before embarking on any weight-loss program.

Deciding which foods to eat

When you change your way of eating, especially when you’re cutting calories to lose weight, you have many food choices to make. Do you prefer to cut calories by eating low-calorie and calorie-free food products? Do you want to continue eating the same way you’ve been eating, knowing that you have to limit the amount of some of your favorite foods? Maybe you can reach a com- promise and decide to do a little of both. For instance, you may decide that you don’t want to eat the calorie-controlled entrees available in your super- market’s freezer section in favor of “real foods,” but you do want to save calories by using artificial sweetener in your coffee.

In the following sections, I explain the use of calorie-modified and full-calorie foods in a low-calorie diet, and the advantages and disadvantages of using each kind.

Faking it with commercial diet products

Many weight-loss programs and food companies sell packaged, calorie- controlled and nutritionally enhanced food products such as shake mixes, frozen and shelf-stable entrees, light salad dressings, and calorie-free sweeteners (see the nearby “Substituting artificial sweeteners to reduce calories” sidebar) to help dieters stick to a low-calorie plan by providing both convenience and structure. Many of the modified foods and meal replacement beverages available in supermarkets and health food stores come with a calorie-controlled diet plan of their own.

Often, you have few decisions to make when you use these products because they have been packaged to fit into a prescribed plan similar to the menu plans in Chapter 6. Having fewer decisions certainly simplifies everything because if you decide to use these products, you can interchange them with the menu plans in this book.

Even if you decide to use modified foods in your diet plan, make sure one of your long-term goals is to return to real food. Most meal-replacement products sold in supermarkets and drugstores and through commercial diet programs are fine for the short term if they help you stick to a calorie-controlled plan. On their own, however, they’re generally not considered long-term solutions for weight control because they’re not natural foods and they don’t contain all the nutritional substances found in natural foods. Keep in mind that your body is naturally designed to digest and absorb whole foods, not pills and potions (unless you’re sick). Just as multivitamin pills and other nutritional supplements can help fill nutritional gaps in your diet, meal replacements and other specialized food products can do the same and also help provide struc- ture and convenience. And yes, you can get away with taking some supple- ments and using some modified food products in your diet for an unlimited period of time. But most health experts agree neither should be considered a complete or permanent replacement for real food (see the next section).

Keeping it real with natural foods

If you’re a purist with your food, you’re probably not interested in diet foods, such as the calorie-controlled frozen entrees, meal-replacement shakes, artificial sweeteners, and other nutritionally modified food products that many people use to control calories.

If you choose to go the “real foods” route, and eat more natural foods, you’ll find plenty of options for creating simple meals in the menu plans in Chapter 6 and the recipes in Chapters 12 through 15. Inevitably, it takes more time to pre- pare your own meals than it does to simply pop open a can or stick a frozen entree in the microwave oven. But when your low-calorie diet consists of mostly natural foods, you’ve got a head start on the road back to normal eating.

Keeping a good supply of basic, healthful convenience foods in your pantry can help ensure that you have the makings of a quick, low-calorie meal on hand at all times and perhaps prevent you from eating or overeating less nutritious or more fattening foods. In “Browsing the grocery shelves,” later in this chapter, you can find a list of suggested packaged foods to have for preparing “real” and simple everyday meals, along with any specialized low-calorie meals you may keep in your freezer for everyday use or “emergencies.”

Substituting artificial sweeteners to reduce calories

If you have an uncontrollable sweet tooth, another way to keep the calories down in your diet is to use sugar substitutes. Artificial, or non-nutritive, sweeteners that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for sale in the United States include (in order of sweetness):

� Saccharin (sold as Sweet’N Low, Sweet Twin, Sweet’N Low Brown, Necta Sweet) is 200 to 700 times sweeter than white table sugar and doesn’t lose its sweetening power when heated.

� Sucralose (sold as Splenda) is 600 times sweeter than white table sugar. It can be used in cooking and baking because heat- ing doesn’t reduce its sweetening power.

� Aspartame (sold as NutraSweet, Equal, Sugar Twin) is considered 160 to 220 times as sweet as white table sugar. Aspartame can’t be used in cooking and baking because it loses its sweetening power when heated.

� Acesulfame-K (sold as Sunett, Sweet & Safe, Sweet One) is considered 200 times sweeter than white table sugar, and it can be used in cooking because it doesn’t lose its sweetening power when heated.

Other FDA-approved, non-nutritive sweeteners that aren’t commonly available for everyday use by consumers but that may be used by food manufacturers to sweeten soft drinks and other beverages, dairy products, frozen desserts, baked goods, candies, chewing gum, and other food products include sorbitol, xylitol, maltitol, mannitol, lactitol, isomalt, and neotame. You may see some of these products listed on the labels of any low-sugar, no-sugar-added, and artificially sweetened products you buy in the supermarket. For more about artificial sweeteners, see Chapter 2.

Making a list and sticking to it

This section is especially important for those of you who can’t eat just one of anything. You need to stick very closely to the food shopping list that you create from the menu plans you’re using on your diet so that you don’t have any extra or “forbidden” food in the house that may tempt you to overeat (see Chapter 6 for more on menu planning). In addition to your weekly list of menus, maintain a written running list as you start to run low on any staples you normally keep in your cupboard and fridge, such as flour and other baking goods, canned soups and sauces, milk, and eggs.

Try to keep your supermarket shopping trips down to once or perhaps twice a week. The less you shop for food, the less opportunity you have to buy impulse and indulgence items, such as snack and dessert foods or anything extra you may be tempted to buy simply because it’s on sale. Keep a list on your refrigerator door or anywhere in the kitchen that’s handy so you can jot down items you need whenever you think of them.

Earning your favorite treats the low-calorie way

Can’t imagine life without ice cream? If not, go ahead and have some, but make sure you earn it. For example, rather than putting ice cream (or another favorite indulgence food) on your shopping list (or sneaking it into your super- market cart even though it’s not on your list), make yourself leave home for it every time you want it. And no, that doesn’t mean hopping in the car and driving to the local dairy bar. Walk or ride a bicycle to your ice cream source, and then walk or ride home. This method has two benefits:

� First, you’re getting some exercise that will help burn off your indulgence calories.

� Secondly, you may be less inclined to eat ice cream every night if you have to leave the comfort of your home to get it.

If you must drive for the sake of safety or because the store is just too far away, having to travel for your treats is still better than keeping indulgence foods around the house. You can still make up for high-calorie treats by doing extra exercises another time. Just be sure to impose an “exercise for treats” rule on yourself and follow it!

To get in and out of the supermarket as quickly as possible, organize your shopping list according to your supermarket’s aisles and overall layout. Start with the aisle closest to the entrance and end with the last aisle you walk down before heading for the checkout.

Shopping for Low-Calorie Foods

When you think about it, your diet really starts in the supermarket, where you make your final decisions about which foods to buy and bring home. Sure, you plan your menus and make up your shopping list at home, but in the supermarket is where you decide whether or not to stick to your list, choose substitutes, or maybe throw a few “extras” into your shopping cart that aren’t even on your list. In the long run, these decisions can make or break your diet.

Amidst the temptations that call out to you at every turn, your supermarket’s aisles are actually stocked with more products and tools that can help you stick to your diet than with those that help sabotage it. Use just a few of these helpful tips on your next supermarket trip:

� Focus on the produce section: The produce section of some of the larger supermarkets chains often takes up a large chunk of floor space devoted to healthful food. You can’t go wrong in those aisles!

� Look for the label: Nutrition labels on every packaged food in the store help you make smart decisions when you’re comparing similar foods.

� Search for helpful information: Very often, supermarkets display free brochures and recipe cards loaded with helpful tips for buying and preparing healthful foods.

In the following sections, I help you shop smart by reading labels and selecting great foods from every part of the supermarket.

Reading the labels

Food labels are a great source of helpful information to low-calorie dieters. Labels tell you the amount of food you’re buying, how many servings are in the package, how many calories are in a single serving, where the food comes from, and which ingredients were used to prepare the food. The Nutrition Facts box on the label provides a nutritional analysis of the food, and many labels also clearly display a nutrition description, such as low-sugar, fat-free, or high- fiber, to help you ferret out products that may be helpful on a low-calorie diet.

Deciphering descriptive lingo

The FDA standardized all the nutrition language on food labels, so you can pick up a package of food and feel confident that what you see is what you get. Table 5-1 defines some terms used on food labels:

The words “fat-free,” “reduced-fat,” and “reduced-sugar” don’t necessarily mean that a food product is low in calories. Many products that are modified to reduce fat or sugar do indeed contain fewer calories than similar products that haven’t been modified, but you have to check and compare the product labels to be sure. Likewise, “no added sugar” doesn’t mean that a product contains no sugar. Many foods contain natural sugars that will be accounted for on the nutrition label (covered later in this chapter in the “Checking nutrition facts” section). Look for these terms when you’re shopping for low-calorie foods, but be sure to compare the actual nutrition information on similar products so that you know you’re really getting what you want.

Scoping out the ingredients

All packaged foods that contain more than one ingredient have their ingredients listed on the label in descending order by weight. If the first or second ingredient is sugar, sucrose, fructose, corn syrup, or high-fructose corn syrup, then that food is high in sugar. If you try to avoid any type of food, for any reason, the ingredient list is the first place you need to look when buying convenience foods and other prepared products.

Checking nutrition facts

Just about every packaged food product in the supermarket displays a Nutrition Facts label that you can use to check the number of calories and amount of other nutrients found in a single serving. Some produce and other fresh foods also carry Nutrition Facts labels, either on their skins, their pack- aging, or on a nearby poster or flyer.

The Nutrition Facts label illustrated in Figure 5-1 is typical of what you’ll see on most cans and packages of food in the supermarket and health food store.

The categories on the label are

� Serving size: All the nutrition information contained on the label applies to this amount of the food.

� Servings per container: If, for instance, the package or can contains 2 servings and you eat the entire contents, you must double the number of calories and other nutrients listed.

� Calories: This number is the amount of calories in a single serving of the food.

� Calories from fat: This amount tells you the number of calories in one serving of this food that come from all fats. The closer this number is to the total number of calories in a serving, the higher the food is in fat.

� Total fat: The total amount of all fats, in grams (g), in one serving of the food is listed (along with saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium) because many people need to limit these nutrients.

� Saturated fat: This is the amount of saturated fat, in grams, in one serving. The recommended daily limit for most healthy people is 20 grams.

� Cholesterol: This is the amount of cholesterol, in milligrams (mg), in one serving. The recommended daily limit for healthy people is 300 mg or less.

� Sodium: This is the amount of sodium (salt), in milligrams, in one serving. The recommended daily limit for healthy people is 3,000 mg or less.

� Total carbohydrate: This is the total amount of all carbohydrates, including sugar and starches, in grams, in one serving.

� Dietary fiber: The total amount of all fibers is listed, in grams, because this nutrient is lacking in many people’s diets. Use this information to compare similar products and choose those that are higher in fiber.

� Sugars: The total amount of all sugars, both added and natural, in grams, is listed because many people consume too much sugar. Use this information to compare similar products and choose those that are lower in sugar.

� Protein: This is the amount of total protein, in grams, in one serving of the food.

The % Daily Value listed with some of the nutrients on the Nutrition Facts label tells you how one serving of the food contributes to the average daily requirement for that nutrient. The higher the percentage, the more that food contributes to your daily requirement for that particular nutrient. Daily Values are calculated on the basis of a 2,000-calorie diet for general use, but no matter how many calories you consume, you can use them to get an idea of whether a particular food is high or low in a specific nutrient.

Check and compare the calorie contents of prepared foods. When a single serving of any one food contains more than 400 calories, it’s a high-calorie food.

When you check the Nutrition Facts label, you can find out what you’re get- ting in the way of nutrients for the number of calories you’re consuming. For the best comparison, make sure you’re evaluating equal amounts of similar foods. For instance, choose several different types of reduced-calorie or “light” bread with similar calorie counts per slice and compare them to see which loaf has the most fiber per slice. If you need more fiber in your diet, and all other factors, such as calories, are essentially equal, the bread with the most fiber is your best choice.

Going aisle by aisle

Even though you can find the freshest foods in the supermarket around the store’s perimeter, on the produce shelves, and in the meat and dairy cases, you can also find healthful, diet-friendly foods in every aisle. You just have to know what to look for and where to find them.

Picking fresh fruits and vegetables

When shopping for fresh produce, buy fruits and vegetables when they’re in season. Not only are seasonal fruits and vegetables less expensive, but they also taste better. And if they taste good, you’ll be more inclined to eat more of these highly nutritious and comparatively low-calorie foods, right?

Lucky for you, low-cal salad basics, such as lettuce, cucumber, radishes, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes, are tasty and available all year around, as are broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, and celery. You can usually always find a pineapple or some variety of citrus fruit. The following short list is a sampling of other fruits and vegetables arranged by peak season:

� Autumn/Winter: Apples, pears, tangerines, kumquats, beets, turnips, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, spinach, fennel, winter squashes

� Spring: Asparagus, artichokes, peas, green beans, rhubarb

� Summer: Corn, tomatoes, okra, peaches, plums, nectarines, grapes, melons, berries

Choosing lean meats and poultry

Leaner cuts of meat and poultry contain fewer calories than fattier cuts. When shopping for meat and poultry, buy these following examples of lean cuts:

� Beef: Eye of round, top loin, sirloin, top round, tenderloin, chuck steak or roast, any cut graded select.

� Chicken and turkey: Lighter meat from the breast area contains less fat and fewer calories than darker meat from the thighs and legs.

� Lamb: Leg, loin, shoulder chop, foreshank.

� Pork: Tenderloin, top loin roast, center loin, loin rib chops, lean ham.

Selecting seafood

When purchasing seafood, buy seafood that is absolutely fresh. Check out the conditions in your supermarket’s fish department or at your local fishmonger. All seafood needs to be displayed on ice in very clean refrigerated cases.

Fattier fish, such as bluefish, salmon, catfish, fresh tuna, swordfish, and fresh water bass, are higher in calories than leaner fish, such as cod, flounder, pol- lock, and orange roughy. Most shellfish are low in calories. In Table 5-2, you can see how some common fresh fish and shellfish compare.

For more on the calorie counts of seafood and other foods, check Appendix A and Appendix B at the back of this book.

Recognizing the right dairy products

For the most part, lowfat means lower calories in the dairy department. Check out Table 5-3 to see how many calories you can save by choosing reduced-fat, lowfat, and fat-free milk products.

When choosing dairy products, remember that reduced-fat cheeses and yogurts also contain fewer calories than similar products made from whole milk. Remember to check the labels, however, because some reduced-fat dairy products are sweetened and flavored with added ingredients and the calories from added sugar may well make up for the calories that were lost with the fat.

Surveying freshly prepared foods

Thanks to the wide variety of ready-to-cook and ready-to-serve foods available in the supermarket today, sticking to a low-cal diet in the most healthful way possible has never been easier. You can buy peeled and cut-up vegetables from the produce department to use in your own recipes or pack for lunch and snacks, or buy premixed salads and complete entrees that require nothing more than a reheating in the microwave oven when you get home.

When choosing prepared meals other than plain vegetable salads, select packages that provide a nutritional breakdown per serving. Otherwise you don’t know how many calories you’re getting or how much of that particular food meets your low-calorie criteria for a single serving.

Opting for frozen foods

Buying and eating frozen foods has its pros and cons, but for the most part, freezing is preferred over canned for nutritional value because the freezing process destroys fewer nutrients. Frozen foods are often your best bet for buying fruits and vegetables out of season.

Another reason to opt for frozen is convenience. Many calorie-controlled foods are available in the freezer case that require nothing more than a whirl in the microwave oven before eating. If that type of fast food helps keep you away from the high-calorie variety, go for it!

When buying frozen foods, check and compare the labels on fish, poultry, fruits, and vegetables before you buy, and, for the most part, stick to plain foods to avoid added calories. Stay away from foods that are sauced, breaded, or fried before freezing. You may find some exceptions in foods formulated to be part of a healthy, lowfat, or reduced calorie diet plan, but again, check the labels to ensure these foods fit your criteria for a low-calorie diet.

Browsing the grocery shelves

Convenience foods — bottled, canned, and boxed food products — make up the bulk of what you’ll find in most people’s shopping carts, and low-caldieters are no different. Just be sure you’re getting good nutrition along with the convenience by being picky. Many convenience foods, such as canned fruits and vegetables, lose some or all their nutritional value during processing. They also tend to be high in sodium. Check the Nutrition Facts labels and compare similar products to see what you’re actually getting in that can, box, or bottle before you buy.

The following list contains some of the convenience foods I recommend most often to anyone who is stocking a pantry for a low-calorie kitchen. Many of these aren’t low-calorie foods, but if you’re familiar with appropriate portion sizes, or if you use the menu plans in Chapter 6 as a guide to portioning out your meals, these foods provide the makings for a quick, easy, low- calorie meal.

� An assortment of dried herbs, spices, and seasoning blends

� Canned fish such as tuna, crab, sardines, and salmon packed in water

� Canned legumes (beans, lentils, and split peas)

� Canned soups

� Dry pasta and pasta mixes

� Fat-free beef broth

� Fat-free chicken broth

� Flavored vinegars

� Nonstick vegetable cooking spray

� Olive oil (plain and seasoned)

� Plain crackers such as saltines

� Rice and rice mixes

� Rice cakes

� Salsas, chutneys, and other lowfat condiments

� Small bread sticks

� Tomatoes, tomato sauces, tomato paste

� Unsweetened or lightly sweetened breakfast cereals

� Vegetable broth

Low-calorie foods tend to be plain and simple, so to keep them interesting, use seasonings to spice them up. Table 5-4 shows you which fresh or dried herbs and spices are best for brightening up the flavor of plainly cooked poultry, seafood, meats, beans, and vegetable side dishes. Remember: Garlic and onions go a long way toward flavoring most foods without adding a significant number of calories, so don’t skimp!

Setting Up a Low-Calorie Kitchen

If one mantra applies to all aspects of low-calorie dieting, it’s “keep it simple.” That statement certainly applies to the food you choose to eat and the tools and techniques you use to prepare your food. The following sections focus on the basic equipment you need in your kitchen and easy low-calorie cooking methods.

Using the tools of the trade

While on a low-calorie diet, you don’t need any extra or unnecessary cooking equipment or kitchen gadgets. The following sections narrow everything down to the relatively few “special” utensils and appliances that are actually helpful to anyone who is on a low-calorie diet and wants to cook at home.

Selecting skillets, saucepans, and woks

The type and number of pots and pans you buy depends on your own personal cooking style. If you enjoy cooking and plan to prepare many of your low-calorie meals at home, you may want to have a variety of skillets and saucepans at your disposal.

The best pots and pans for a low-calorie kitchen are coated with a nonstick finish that allows you to cook with little or no added fat. Beyond that, the quality of skillets and saucepans you buy is your choice. Heavy-duty cook- ware tends to be more expensive than lighter-weight pots and pans, but it cooks food more evenly and lasts longer.

If you cook for a family of three or more, I suggest larger skillets that are 10, 12, or even 14 inches in diameter. You may also want to have at least one smaller skillet (6 to 8 inches) on hand for making individual dishes such as omelets and for general use when cooking smaller amounts of food.

Like skillets, saucepans come in many sizes, and if you cook, you need at least one small (1-quart) and one large (3- to 4-quart) pan. In addition, a very large (a least 5- to 8-quart) saucepot, or Dutch oven, is essential for cooking pasta and large quantities of soups, stews, or vegetables.

In addition to your regular pots and pans, consider buying a wok. No single piece of kitchenware is more versatile than a wok, especially if you cook in a small kitchen where you can only benefit from having one good-size pot that does several different jobs. A wok is used first and foremost for stir-frying (see “Stir-frying” later in this chapter), and thanks to its size and shape, can take the place of almost any size skillet in many different types of recipes. A wok can also double as a steamer and, in fact, a complete wok set includes a steaming rack. You can also braise or simmer foods in a wok, which means you can also use it to make soups, stews, and saucy dishes.

Woks come in different sizes. The size you choose depends on the amount of food you normally cook at one time. Woks are made of different materials. The woks that work best are made from 14-gauge spun steel, anodized aluminum, or cast iron. Avoid stainless steel (unless it’s clad with aluminum) because stainless steel poorly conducts heat, and stir-fried food sticks to the bottom and sides of a stainless steel wok. Because woks cook food with a minimal amount of fat, you don’t need a wok finished with nonstick coatings. Actually the slippery surface prevents stir-fried foods from cooking properly.

Most wok sets come with a cover, a cooking ring to hold round-bottom woks, and appropriate utensils such as a wire strainer, a ladle, and a wide spatula that can pick up and move larger amounts of food around the wok at one time better than a regular spatula or spoon. Expect to pay as much for a good wok as you would for a good saucepot.

Finding one good knife

A knife is probably more important than any other piece of kitchen equipment because you use it to slice, dice, and otherwise prepare food. A good knife simplifies the work of preparing fresh food from scratch, which in turn can help motivate you to make home-cooked, low-calorie meals on a regular basis.

If you can only afford one good knife, choose an 8- to 10-inch chef’s knife. With knives, as with most everything else in life, you get what you pay for, so be pre- pared to spend as much as $75 or more for a high-quality chef’s knife. If you can afford two good knives, choose the chef’s knife and a small paring knife.

The best quality knives sold in department stores and culinary supply stores are usually made from high-carbon, nonstaining steel. The blade needs to extend into the full-length of the handle (known as a full-tang blade). Ask to hold the knife before you buy it, to make sure it feels comfortable in your hand.

After you own a good knife, it’ll last your lifetime if you take care of it properly. Wash your knife by hand and dry it immediately. Store it in its own sheath, in a knife block, or on a mounted magnetic knife strip where it won’t get banged around. Use a sharpening stone or electric sharpening machine to keep a fine edge on your blades.

Gathering assorted utensils and bakeware

If you’re trying to figure out which basic utensils and bakeware you need in your low-cal kitchen, start with this checklist:

❑ Casserole-type baking dishes — round, square, and rectangular

❑ Cutting boards

❑ Dry measuring cups

❑ Large colander

❑ Liquid measuring cups

❑ Measuring spoons

❑ Mixing bowls — small, medium, and large

❑ Nonstick bakeware — baking (cookie) sheets, 12-cup muffin pan, 9-inch pie plate, 9-inch round cake pans, 8- or 9-inch square cake pan

❑ Nonstick spatulas — flat and spoon-shaped

❑ Nonstick or wooden whisks — small and large

❑ Wooden spoons — various lengths

❑ Wire mesh sieves (strainers) — small and large

If you never bake and never plan to, you don’t need much, if any, nonstick bakeware, but certain standard baking items, such as cookie sheets, cake pans, and pie plates, can come in handy for other types of cooking. For instance, if you like to make pita pizzas or cheese nachos, you need a flat cookie sheet. Likewise, you can use a cake pan or pie plate for roasting a small amount of food, such as a single chicken breast on the bone or a pair of baked potatoes.

You can accessorize your kitchen with all types of extra gadgets, but only buy what you’ll use on a regular basis. Otherwise, you’ll just end up with a cluttered kitchen and an empty pocketbook. Use this checklist as a guide to “extras” often found in a well-stocked low-cal kitchen:

� Cheese grater

� Citrus reamer

� Garlic press

� Large kitchen shears for cutting through poultry bones and other heavy- duty clipping chores

� Pepper grinder

� Pizza wheel

� Salad spinner

� Small kitchen scissors for snipping herbs and a variety of other tasks

Choosing small appliances

If you watch any of the television home shopping shows, or peruse your local department store’s ads, you can see how easy it could be to clutter up your kitchen counters with all kinds of cooking gizmos and gadgets that are sup- posed to save time and somehow make your life easier. The truth is, you don’t need much when it comes to setting up a low-cal kitchen and you probably already own most of the small appliances that are most helpful.

Some helpful small appliances you may already have and may want to continue using in your low-calorie kitchen include

� Blender: If you’re a fan of smoothies and shakes, keep your blender out on the counter, rather than stored away in a cupboard.

If you’re not familiar with hand-held immersion blenders, check them out next time you’re in a kitchenware department. You can use an immersion blender to mix a smoothie right in the serving glass or to puree a soup or sauce while it’s still in the saucepan. (You can find more information about using immersion blenders in Chapter 12.)

 Food processor: A food processor is a must-have appliance for anyone who likes to make homemade soups and sauces. If you cook in large quantities, invest in a large processor. Small food processors are avail- able if you cook your food in individual servings.

� Rice cooker: Perfectly cooked rice is always possible when you prepare it in an electric rice cooker. If you eat rice often, this appliance is a worthwhile investment.

Electric rice cookers and pasta pots or lobster pots with perforated draining baskets can often double as steamers. If you own this type of cookware, you probably don’t need a separate steamer. You can also improvise your own steamer with kitchen items that you probably already own. (See the next section for more on using a steamer.)

� Toaster oven: These tiny ovens can do anything a regular oven can do, but only for small amounts of food. They’re perfect for cooking or heating up individual portions of food.

A toaster oven does more than toast; it bakes and broils small quantities of food, which makes it a perfect appliance for any low-cal dieter who

is cooking for one (or two) and doesn’t want to heat up the regular oven. Toaster ovens come in various sizes, and some feature two levels for cooking larger quantities or more than one type of food at a time.

Two additional appliances that are extra handy in a low-calorie kitchen are a steamer and a microwave oven. I give you the full scoop on both items in the following sections.

Getting all steamed up

Because steaming is at the top of the list of good low-calorie cooking techniques (see the “Steaming” section later in this chapter), you may want to get serious about steaming equipment. Collapsible metal steamers that fit inside most saucepans are inexpensive and easy to find. They’re best for foods that can easily be removed from the pan with tongs or a fork.

If you’re going to get serious about steaming, your best bet is a Chinese-style, stackable bamboo steamer. These multilayered steamers are very efficient because they can cook more than one layer of food at a time so you can steam your entire meal, entree, and side dishes, all at the same time, in the same container.

Making the most of a microwave oven

Everyone knows that microwave ovens were born for reheating leftover food, thawing and cooking frozen entrees, and warming up coffee that’s gone cold. What you may not know is that a microwave oven is also a good weight-loss tool because you can use it to cook fresh food with little or no added fat. Microwave ovens are especially good at cooking vegetables. (You can find cooking times for specific vegetables in “Cooking in a microwave oven,” later in this chapter.) In fact, any food that can successfully be cooked in a steamer, including fish and poultry, also does well in a microwave oven.

Use these guidelines and tips if you’re considering the purchase of a new microwave oven:

� Most microwave recipes and cooking times in this book and elsewhere are based on 600- or 700-watt full-size ovens set at 100 percent power. Lower wattage ovens cook foods more slowly, and higher wattage ovens cook foods more quickly.

� Some microwave ovens come with variable power levels. Most foods are cooked at 100 percent power, but you may find that you use half (50 per- cent) power or less for slower cooking, reheating, melting, and thawing.

� Microwave ovens often come with optional features such as turntables that automatically rotate food for even cooking, moisture sensors for detecting how much longer a food needs to cook, and one-button controls for thawing, reheating beverages, and popping popcorn. When you’re trying to choose between different oven styles, think about which features you’re most likely to use.

Brushing up on low-calorie cooking techniques

Some cooking methods fit more easily into a low-calorie lifestyle than others, and you probably know that deep-fat frying isn’t one of them! In general, any method that doesn’t require adding fat to the pan, such as steaming, microwaving, or poaching, is your best bet. Any method that requires only a small amount of fat, such as sautéing or stir-frying food in a skillet or wok with just a spoonful of oil is your second best bet. Roasting and broiling can both be low-calorie techniques for cooking meat and vegetables, as long as you don’t add much fat. I cover these techniques in the following sections.

Steaming

Steaming is the ideal cooking method for low-calorie cooks who are in a hurry because it’s a relatively quick and easy way of preparing food that adds no calories and requires very little clean-up.

If you’re steaming food, place it on a rack or in a steamer basket. You then put the rack or steamer basket over boiling liquid in a tightly covered container. Don’t immerse the food in the boiling liquid; the steam created from that liquid trapped in the covered pot cooks the food.

The method may vary slightly, depending on the type of steamer you use (see “Getting all steamed up,” earlier in this chapter), but the following basics apply whenever food is steamed over boiling liquid:

� Never overcrowd your steamer pot with food. Work in batches, if necessary, to avoid uneven cooking.

� When using a steamer basket inside a pot, bring the liquid to a boil first, and then lower the filled steamer basket into the pot. Doing so helps assure even cooking. You may need to use a kitchen glove or potholder so you don’t burn your hands.

� To successfully steam a dish, be sure the food sits over, not in, the boil- ing water or other liquid used to create steam, and that the steamer has enough room for the steam to circulate freely.

� Always uncover your steamer with the lid opening away from you.

Otherwise, you could get a steam burn on your hands or face.

� If you’re new to steaming, keep a pot of water simmering, in case you need to replenish the liquid in the bottom of the steamer. If the liquid evaporates in your steamer before you replace it, the cooking process will be interrupted and you may damage your steamer.

To improvise a steamer, fit a metal cooling rack, wire mesh strainer, or metal colander inside a large deep saucepan. Another way to steam food is to invert a small heatproof bowl or custard cup in the bottom of a deep skillet or saucepot large enough to hold a heatproof plate with at least 1⁄2-inch open space around the perimeter to allow steam to circulate. Fill the pot with an inch of boiling water or enough to come halfway up the side of the bowl. Place the food to be steamed on a heatproof plate and lower the plate into the pot to sit on the inverted bowl. (See Figure 5-2.)

However you improvise a steamer, be sure you can tightly cover the pot, and be sure to protect your hands, arms, and face from hot water and steam whenever the pot is uncovered. As with all stovetop-cooking methods, keep young children away from the stove while you’re steaming.

Cooking in a microwave oven

The most popular uses for a microwave oven may be reheating leftovers and heating up precooked convenience foods, but for low-cal cooks and other healthy eaters, microwave ovens are also excellent for cooking certain foods from scratch, especially fresh vegetables. As with steaming, the vegetables preserve more of their flavor and nutrients when cooked quickly in the very small amount of water required in a microwave oven, and no calories are added.

Use Table 5-5 as a general guide to cooking fresh vegetables in a full power (700 watt) microwave oven. Cooking times vary, depending on the size of the vegetables and the oven. These cooking times are for 1 pound of vegetables cooked in a covered container with 2 tablespoons of water for most vegetables and 3 tablespoons of water for starchier vegetables such as peas and potatoes. Be sure that vegetables are trimmed or cut into equal-size pieces for even cooking. When cooking vegetables or other food in a microwave oven, check halfway through the cooking time and stir or rearrange the pieces for even cooking, if necessary. Most vegetables require a standing time after cooking of 1 to 5 minutes to finish cooking.

The following tips can help you when cooking foods and making the most of your microwave oven:

� If time allows, defrost frozen foods first in the refrigerator before reheat- ing them in the microwave oven. Defrosting food in the microwave can cause hot spots, areas where some of the food is actually cooking while other areas are still thawing and/or reheating.

� Use only food-safe, microwaveable containers to cook or reheat food in a microwave oven. Any container not designed for use in a microwave oven may melt, explode, catch fire, or impart toxic substances to your food.

� Reheat bread and other baked goods at half (50 percent) power to avoid drying out and hardening.

� Cook individual boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (cutlets) in a small covered dish with 1⁄4 cup chicken broth or other liquid for about 8 minutes or until the flesh in the center of the breast is opaque. Allow the chicken to cool slightly before cutting.

� Cook 1 pound fresh fish in a covered container (no added liquid is necessary) for 5 to 6 minutes or until the fish flakes easily and the flesh in the center of the fish is opaque.

� Pregrilling is another good use for the microwave oven because it speeds up the time food spends on the grill. Cook meat or poultry at half (50 per- cent) power until half-cooked, and then immediately transfer to the grill to finish cooking.

� Use only popcorn that is packaged for popping in a microwave oven.

Poaching

Poaching simply means simmering plain food in enough liquid to cover it in a pot or deep skillet. It’s a technique that is well suited to low-calorie dieting because it adds no calories to the food being poached.

Poaching is used mainly for cooking whole or filleted fish, shellfish, and bone- less, skinless chicken or turkey breasts. Generally, when cooking seafood, use fish stock, and when cooking poultry, use chicken broth. For your cooking liquid, use well-seasoned salt, whole peppercorns, and herbs, and enhance it with seasoning vegetables such as onions, carrots, and celery that cook alongside the seafood or poultry. The food that is poached picks up some of the broth’s flavor and, in turn, the broth’s flavor is enriched by the food that cooks in it. You can serve the leftover poaching liquid with the food or use it to make a sauce or soup. You can buy special poaching pans, but any pan that’s large enough to hold both the food and the liquid will do.

Follow these easy steps when poaching poultry and seafood:

1. Add the fish or chicken to cold poaching liquid.

2. Slowly bring the liquid to a boil over medium heat.

3. Reduce the heat to low.

Use the following times when poaching certain meats. Remember that poaching time begins when the water just starts to bubble.

Fish steaks or filets until opaque in center, 6 to 10 minutes depending on the type and thickness of the fish Chicken breasts until opaque in center, about 6 to 8 minutes Lobster, crab, or shrimp (in their shells) for about 20 minutes per pound Increase the poaching time for larger turkey breasts and whole fish accordingly.

Stir-frying

Like steaming, stir-frying is a moist-heat method of cooking that’s quick, easy, and, if done properly, light on calories. When you stir-fry in a wok or deep skillet, you stir the food constantly to keep it moving so that the heat of the pan cooks your food without burning it. Using the pan’s heat to cook the food allows you to use less added fat than with other forms of frying.

Stir-frying is also similar to sautéing, which is the method most people use to cook food in a skillet with just a teaspoonful or, at most, a tablespoonful of fat, and stirring often to prevent the food from sticking and burning. With stir- frying, you spend most of your time preparing the food by cutting meats and vegetables into bite-size, similar-size pieces for even cooking.

Use these helpful tips for successful stir-frying:

� Cut and slice all foods and measure and mix all seasonings and sauces in advance of cooking. You usually don’t have enough time to cut up food between adding in the next ingredient when stir-frying.

� Arrange your ingredients in the order in which they’ll go into the wok or skillet.

� Heat your wok or skillet first, and then add the cooking oil. Doing so helps prevent food from sticking.

Roasting, broiling, and grilling

Roasting and broiling are known as dry-heat methods of cooking that are done in a regular oven, a convection oven, or even a toaster oven. When food is broiled, excess fat falls through the broiler rack and into the broiler pan, eliminating many calories. To get the same benefit from roasting, raise your food by placing it on a rack that fits inside the roasting pan.

Baking and roasting are one and the same — no matter what you call it, food that is baked or roasted is cooked by hot, dry air circulating in a tightly closed oven. Traditionally, the word roasting was used to describe a method for cooking large cuts of meat, while the word baking was used to describe cooking almost everything else in an oven. These days, however, roasting vegetables, garlic, fish, and poultry is more fashionable than it is to bake them, so the term “roasted” is used more often now to describe food cooked in a regular oven.

Making a marvelous marinade

Look for marinade recipes that contain little or no fat. The following teriyaki marinade contains no fat, is relatively low in calories, and tastes absolutely yummy on meat, chicken, or fish:

Stir together 1⁄2 cup soy sauce, 3 tablespoons light brown sugar, 2 tablespoons dry sherry or white wine, 2 teaspoons minced garlic, 1⁄2 tea- spoon ground ginger or 1⁄4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder in a small bowl. Yield: about 3⁄4 cup marinade.

Lean meats, poultry, and fish — mainstays in many low-calorie diets — can easily dry out when they’re roasted in an oven or cooked under a broiler. To prevent lean meats from drying out and getting tough, marinate the meat (for at least 30 minutes at room temperature or 1 hour in the refrigerator) before cooking and baste it with the marinade or its own pan juices several times while cooking.

Another way to keep lean meats from drying out in the oven is to cover the roasting pan for the second half of the cooking time so that steam is formed, helping the meat to stay moist.

Broiling is usually quicker than roasting and can be likened to grilling because, when done correctly, it quickly browns and crisps the outside of your food while cooking the inside just to the doneness you desire. Be careful if you aren’t an experienced cook. You don’t want to burn the outside of your food before the inside is done.

To avoid burning your food when broiling, place your meats, poultry, fish, or vegetables 4 to 6 inches from the heating element, as long as you check the food from time to time while it’s cooking.