personalchefjoe.com Blog

Fat Chef gets Fit Day 4

June 18, 2006 on 8:06 am | In Fat Chef gets Fit | No Comments

Update or July 17th

I slept late this morning, but my wife dragged me out of bed because we had to go run a couple of errands and pay some bills in the morning.  It was also a bit warm, so I decided to wait until it was cooler in the evening to do my exercises.  When we got back, I cooked up a few shrimp that we had in the fridge with a table spoon of unsalted butter 3 cloves of garlic, and fresh cracked pepper.  I then mixed in the left over pasta and vegetables from the night before.  This made a great healthy brunch meal.  I had an early afternoon snack or dessert of a banana, and a glass of iced coffee with low fat milk.  My wife decided to make Chicken for dinner, so we are going to throw some chicken thighs on the grill.  I did my “morning” exercises this evening after it cooled down.        
 
Brunch:   
Pasta with my fresh made sauce and vegetables and shrimp.

Early Afternoon snack:
Banana and iced coffe with low fat milk.

Late Afternoon snack:
Quesadilla with pepper jack cheese, and a whole wheat tortilla.

Dinner:
Jicama, lettuce and basil salad with a lemon honey mustard vinaigrette  dressing.
Grilled squash
1 skinless chicken thigh.
 
Cooking tip of the day.

Big flare ups are often the cause of burnt chicken, and add a bunch of carcinogens.  Since we are trying to eat more healthy ere are some common tips for preventing or reducing flare ups when grilling chicken.

1) To start off, chicken breasts (with bones and rib), legs and thighs take quite a while to grill usually at least 45 minutes to an hour possibly longer depending on how hot you have your grill.  I recommend using a lower temperature if using gas, or move more of the coals too one side and less on the other to control the heat better.

2) Try using an aluminum drip pan with a bit of water in the middle, and the coals around the drip pan.  This will allow the juices and fat that to drip into the pan with out flaring up.  It also helps keep the temperature a bit lower allowing chicken to cook slowly or “Barbecue”.

3) I like to peel the skin off of my chicken, which not only healthier, for having less fat, but the fat is not dripping onto the coals causing flare ups.

4) Keep a spray bottle with clean water to spray/mist the coals when they flares up.  (Don’t reuse an old cleaning bottle, buy a new one just for this.)