Hamdingers aka Naboznis

The important part of this recipe is the sauce/topping. My mom got the recipe from a woman at church back in the 70s. My sisters and I always called these Nabozni sandwiches after her two smokin' hot sons.  Looking back, that seems far dirtier than we meant it to sound!

The lovely thing about Naboznis is that they are cooked on bulkie rolls that are wrapped in foil and put in the oven until the cheese melts beautifully and the roll is lightly toasted. Perfection. However, my husband LOVES hamdingers. These are a croissant-based treat that we invented (although I am sure many others came up with it as well) that we named after an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

So I combined Nabozni's and Hamdingers for this slightly lower calorie version of one of my family's favorites.

 Here are the ingredients. I need to get a prettier kitchen if I am going to keep this up!

 More importantly, here are the ingredients for the sauce. In the recipe I put "melted butter" but it would be better described as really, really soft. And I put in a lot of extra horseradish because I like a nice clean sinus cavity.

 This is the most annoying part. It is rolling out the double crescent roll. You need to sort of pinch together the triangles. Just use a bunch of flour and it will be fine. Roll it as thin as you can.

 Next, put two slices of ham and a slice of Swiss cheese on the dough. Spread a quarter of the spread on the cheese and then fold it over.

  Put those bad-boys on a cookie sheet and cook them until they are golden brown.

Eat them with a bucket-load of chips if you are my husband or son. Otherwise some nice fresh veggies, some dressing* and a light beer are the perfect accompaniment.

*I never realized that the reason people always use a creamy dressing for veggie dipping is because an oil based dressing separates grossly. I need a good veggie dipping sauce recipe! Anyone?...anyone?...Buehler?

Here is your recipe and nutrition info. If I have a snow day tomorrow I will be making some tomato recipes before my tomatoes go bad!

Nabozni Sandwiches

Ham, swiss and a delicious butter spread make these a delicious choice.

Ingredients

• 8 servings one tube pillsbury reduced fat crescent rolls
• 4 servings half pound deli ham
• 4 slices swiss cheese
• 1 tbsp melted butter
• 1/4 tsp poppy seeds
• 1/8 cup yellow mustard
• 2 tsps horseradish

Directions

1. Melt butter, combine it with mustard, horseradish and poppyseeds.
2. Roll out 2 cresent rolls to make a flat square.
3. Place a quarter of the ham on each slice.
4. Put a piece of swiss cheese on top of the ham.
5. Drizzle 1/4 of the sauce over the cheese.
6. Fold the roll over to make a pocket.
7. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until dough is golden brown.

There you go. And ps - I lost 9 pounds since last Tuesday! I don't want to make a big deal about it, but if I were made of veal I would be out $269.91!

This recipe comes from a co-worker who occasionally eats lunch in my office. She is a lovely person and we rarely have any conflict. However, one day she had the temerity to bring this dish, reheat it in my microwave and fill my office with the most delicious smell it has ever known. Let me tell you - it was ON! I demanded she give me her lunch, but my shakedown skills must have become rusty since my youth. And also, she was pretty fierce and defended herself with a plastic fork. And it is common knowledge that I am terrified of disposable kitchenware. At any rate, she gave me the recipe which I made this morning, left in the crockpot all day and am in the midst of eating as I type. Yum!

Here is the centerfold spread of ingredients. The white substance in the little wooden bowl is flour, lest any unsavory rumors start! Look at those breasts! (See, I have just made sure that people don't surf this site at work!)

Heat up your oil and cook your onions and garlic until the onion is tender. I use garlic in a jar, but since I chopped my own ginger, I consider it a draw...

Here are my spices! Don't they look like they are giving the bowl a stern talking to?  "C'mon, fella. Pull yourself together! Get yourself a nice jar and quit lying around all splayed out like that. Have some self respect!" It's a spice intervention!  Anyway, I went a little heavy with the cinnamon and cumin - I honestly think it is because I am used to using them so I used a freer hand. I should have used more coriander. Have you had that stuff?  It smells like heaven!  The original recipe called for something called ras el hanout spice mix. I didn't have a clue and they conveniently gave me the recipe in a sidebar! If you use ras el hanout, you just need to add the tumeric. The coriander, cinnamon, cumin and red pepper are in it.

I added the chicken stock and the flour and it really looked thick. I though, "Surely I need to add more stock or water or SOMETHING!!" But I trusted the recipe and it all turned out swell. I only made half of the original recipe and it still made a ton. More on that later. So here you see not a gunshot wound, but rather the blob of honey and tomato paste. Surely no good can come of an unholy alliance between those to crazy ingredients! We shall see...

See how pretty it looks once you add the spices and tomatoes? I meant to put in a picture of my finely chopped ginger it it's little glass bowl but you are going to have to take my word for it. It was FINE!

The mixture didn't seem like a lot in the crock pot. So to punish it I threw some big chunks of raw chicken on its head.

It was still unrepentant so I threw a bunch of garbanzos on it.  And I yelled "GAR-BAN-ZOS!!!!" as I did hucked them - the way one should. I wasn't sure about draining the beans so I poured out most of the garbanzo juice but left a little just in case. I have no idea about the properties of garbanzo juice. But I really like the phrase "garBANzo juice!"

 Then I felt kind of bad and decided to add some nice, sweet, chopped dried apricots to apologize. They sure pretty up the raw poultry and garbanzos.

I gave it a few quick stirs, covered it up and went about the rest of my day.

The problem came when we got home from church and my husband smelled the aroma and began to nag me about when dinner would be ready.  "Husband," I said, "this food is healthy and you won't like it and it won't be done until 4:30 anyway."

"But it smells so goooooooood!!" he cried. "And aren't you always telling me to try new things?"

"You are having chicken fingers and fries. This has cous cous and GARBANZOS in it!!"

But he persisted in his...well...persistence and so I agreed that he could try some. Of course, he is not "a huge fan" of cous cous* so he made his own rice to eat underneath it.

*  "not a huge fan of..." is one of my conversational pet peeves when discussing food with my beloved. Just say you don't like it! I eat these foods, I am not a huge fan of them. I didn't practice kissing the poster of cous cous that did NOT hang over my bed when I was a teenager! Now Parker Stevenson was another story...

I mentioned earlier that I only made half the recipe my friend gave me. Since the original recipe said "serves six" when I halved it for FatSecret purposes (I put it up to get the nutritional information) I though, surely I could get 4 servings out of that.

Well, as you see, I got 5 healthy sized servings out of it. (The one in the little red bowl is Mr. Crow's cous cous-free one. He is not a huge fan, as you know...)

Here is the glamor shot.  Shore looks pretty, don't it? I have to admit that it was a little spicier than I am used to. Not that it was hot - just very robust. I liked it fine. I don't know if it is going to be a huge repeater for me. However, it also has the feel of something that might be even better as leftovers.  I may try this again with a different bean and less cumin. And more coriander. Mmmmmmm, coriander!

Here is the recipe and if I can swing it, the nutritional info underneath.

Happy eating!

Crockpot Chicken Tagine

Modified from French Tart at Food.com - a delicious stew with chicken, chickpeas and apricots to be served over couscous.

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 servings chickpeas (one 14 oz. can)
• 3 servings near east cous cous
• 1/2 tbsp flour
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 small chicken breast
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp coriander ground
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 3 oz dried apricots
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tsps fresh chopped ginger root
• 1 large onion chopped
• 1 can 14 oz chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tbsps honey

Directions

1. Heat oil in frying pan, saute chopped onion and garlic for 5-10 minutes.
2. Add chicken stock and gradually mix in flour until well mixed and not lumpy. Add honey and tomato paste and mix well.
3. Add herbs, spices and finely chopped ginger with salt and pepper to taste. Add tomato and mix well.
4. Pour above mix into crock pot.
5. Chop chicken into chunks and add to crock pot. Add chickpeas. Cut apricots into quarters and add them as well. Give everything a gentle stir to mix everything together well.
6. Cook on HIGH for 3-4 hours or LOW for 8 hours. Serve over cous cous.

Peanut Dip

Tonight I am going to a "bring some snacks" party. So I am making peanut dip so that I will be willing to eat the raw vegetables I am bring with it. Here are my raw ingredients. I was guessing as I mixed and it came out lovely - if I do say so myself!


Okay, it is probably apparent that I like to put things in little bowls before I mix them. I narrowed the ingredients down to peanut butter, lime juice, hoison sauce, scallions and hot sauce.


Oh yeah, and vegetables... I have asparagus, baby carrots (so young and so delicious!), red pepper strips, grape tomatoes, celery and cukes.


And I mercilessly chopped them up. Although I could have done more damage to the celery, I suppose. I mixed all those ingredients with a whisk and some water and it came out beautifully. Of course I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures of that part. It was really awesome. You should have seen it!

Here is the recipe - more or less:

3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
juice of one lime
2 Tbsp. hoison sauce
1 cup lukewarm water (mixes better)
hot sauce to taste

Mix it up with the whisk of doom and dip veggies in it.

Dinner Out

I went out to dinner with Mr. Crow our younger son Wilbur, his pal who I call Joe Mama and our dear friend Honest Liz. We went to our favorite restaurant, the Salem Beer Works. I originally typed that as Salem BEET Works, which I think would be significantly less popular. I blame the beets...


It is not very easy to order healthy food when all the fried and gooey stuff looks so delicious. But I went with the seared scallops with Jasmine rice, peppers, corn and asparagus in coconut milk sauce. Not tremendously light in calories, but far better than a burger and fries. I also had a diet coke and a giant beer. I regret nothing!! Look at Liz's filthy fries across the table! Just lying there all splayed out. Trollops! I resisted them.

I didn't resist the key lime cheese cake, however... I pretended I was French and had one bite (the best one, the little triangle that has all the good flavor) and then said things like, "Ooooh, I just need a small taste..." and "Ow can you eat more than one bite? It is so riiiich?" in a fake accent to myself. Is that another small beer in front of the picture? How did that get there? It looks HUGE in the picture, but in reality it is barely a sample. Really!

Tomorrow I have leftover Hoppin' John for dinner, but hopefully I will be preparing a hoison peanut sauce for a party I am going to in the evening. We'll see how that works out!

Quick Hoppin' John

This recipe was modified (barely) from the back of the very Goya Blackeye Pea can you see in the above picture. Looks like a lovely bunch of ingredients, does it not? Well don't get excited...


We're only eating this much of it... But it will be filling and rather delicious, I promise!


Start out by putting the water for the rice on to boil. If you start there, it will only take 15-20 minutes to make this meal. Once that is going, put one serving of kielbasa in a pan and cook it up. You can use bacon, but that is a slippery slope. I can resist kielbasa. Bacon? No...


Once you get a little kielbasa grease going (I know, sounds gross, but tough...) throw in your onion and let it cook a couple minutes.


Then you add your red peppers. You don't have to make a pretty arrangement in your pan, like Starbuck painting the Eye of Jupiter, but I find it ever so rewarding to do so.


Add your can of Goya Blackeye Peas. After you dump it in, you are going to think, "Damn, should I have drained those?" But don't second guess yourself. It looks icky now, but some of that juice will cook off and some will be absorbed by the rice.


And see, isn't it prettier once you add the Sauzon Goya and the optional Frank's Red Hot Sauce - or other hot sauce of your choice?


Once you plop in the cooked rice and stir it around, it looks downright palatable. Although a little light on the meat. (I didn't notice while I was eating it, though. Yummy!)


Split it into 4 servings right away lest you be temped to spoon a little extra into your prettiest bowl. Once your extra bowls cool down, put them in tupperwear in individual serving sizes to take for lunch. Or you can feed them to your family if you do that sort of thing. (My family had the rest of the kielbasa, rice pilaf and pumpernickel bread. They run on carbs...)


The prettiest bowl is the one you eat out of. And if you use chopsticks, you can't shovel too much into your mouth at once. Some people have that problem. Not me, of course. No siree, Bob! And at 357 calories, 6.8 g of fat and 12.4 g of protein a serving, you can splurge and have a beer with it!

I used to think that the secret to eating healthfully was not to think too much about food. But I now realize that the secret for ME to eat healthfully is to plan ahead and think A LOT about every bite I take. I think that the fun of documenting my meals may help me out!

Here is the recipe for your cooking pleasure!

Quick Hoppin' John

* 1 serving kielbasa

* One 15.5 oz can of blackeye peas

* one envelope sazon goya

* 1 stalk medium celery (which I leave out because I never remember to buy celery)

* 1 small onion, chopped

* 1/2 cup chopped green pepper

* 3 cups long grain brown rice

Directions

1. In non-stick pan, cook kielbasa until a little grease comes out (sorry...).

2. Add onion, pepper and celery (if you must), cook until onion is tender. Add blackye peas, undrained. Really, undrained.

3. Stir in Sazon Goya packet. You can add a little salt, pepper and/or hot sauce if you like.

4. Reduce heat and summer 5 minutes.

5. Serve over brown rice.

Before I Start Cooking...

Howdy all - welcome to Sedentary Woman - my blog of trying to eat healthy because I am too damn lazy to exercise.

I was inspired by The Pioneer Woman , Ree Drummond, who has been known to blog very delicious recipes. However, she must be incredibly active because those recipes are hella fattening!

Here I am in my Christmas nightie - all 255 pounds of me. If I were veal I would be worth over $7000! However, I am not and therefore I am trying to reduce.

I am using FatSecret which is an amazing website I learned about from the most physically fit woman I have ever met. She is a gym teacher who I served on a committee with and I have blocked her out in an obvious act of mental self preservation. But FatSecret has stuck with me.

So there you have it. I should start cooking soon. (I am being disingenuous... I have already cooked and consumed the dish that will appear in this blog shortly!)