Losing Weight & Seafood Risotto

I’ve enjoyed my past few blogs posts about cooking, so I figured I’d just continue with the occasional cooking post — plus it’s fun to take pictures along the way. One of the biggest advantages of cooking at home is that it’s a lot easier to control what I eat, and by that I mean both portion size and what goes into the food. We’re not that picky, and we don’t make huge efforts to make our meals especially low fat or low calorie, but we do try to use more fresh ingredients than we have in the past. (There was nowhere to go but up, considering a lot of our meals used to come out of a box or from a restaurant.)

And then of course there is portion size. I’ve been moderately overweight for my entire adult life, despite the fact that I lead a fairly active lifestyle. To put it simply: I eat too much. I snack too much, I usually clean my plate, etc etc. So when it comes to losing weight, the biggest thing I have to do is control how much food goes into my mouth. I don’t try too hard to count calories (an activity that I hate), and I don’t deny myself treats. I just have to EAT LESS. It is FAR easier for me to eat less when I can control how much I put on my plate, and the easiest place to do that is at home.

Hence: more cooking at home, and more lunches brought from home. I’ve lost 6 pounds over the past 4 months, and while I realize that rate of weight loss is quite slow, it’s something.

Anyway, the other night we made seafood risotto, one of my favorite things we’ve made from this cookbook. “Quick and easy” definitely describes this dish, but it’s also quite tasty. It’s got a lot of flavor, which makes it satisfying.

To start, you chop up some onions and cook them with some olive oil. Here’s Jose helpfully demonstrating his technique.

It’s funny how many of the recipes we make these days begin with sauteed onions. I don’t care though, because onions on the stovetop smell really good. I usually throw in more onions than the recipe actually calls for too.

Then comes the “risotto” part. Because this is a recipe from a “quick and easy” cookbook, it doesn’t actually use true risotto. It uses regular white long grain rice. That goes in with the onions, along with a can of chicken broth. That simmers, covered, until the rice starts to get fluffy.

By that time, most of the chicken broth has been absorbed, so you add a little water along with some julienned (look at me using cooking terminology!) carrots and black pepper. More simmering, again covered.

After the rice is fully cooked, the rest is super easy. Add chunks of crab meat (we get the imitation stuff, which is fine), parmesan cheese, and spinach, and leave it on the stove just long enough for the crab to heat up and the spinach to wilt.

Voila! It reheats pretty well as a leftover too.