Comfort Food

This meal is good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. With a side salad it makes a nice brunch offering too!

This is a throw it together FAST meal for any weeknight. It is not a spicy dish but you can if you wish, add hot sauce at the table for a little extra zing.

This dish comes together in a flash! You can also make it with steak or even seafood. When I get a hankering for pasta, I crave Chicken Alfredo. This one did it for me!

In addition to being crunchy, satisfying and delicious, pumpkin seeds are a nutritious snack. You can buy shelled pumpkin seeds in the grocery store (also know as pepitas), but when pumpkin season rolls around, you can buy a fresh pumpkin, scrape out the seeds, and toast the whole seeds yourself. YUM! 

This is a “Whopper” of a meatloaf, designed to taste like the famous burger. I hope you enjoy.

For a change of pace you can try a unique meatloaf. This one comes with an optional extra sauce in case you want to really ramp up the flavor.

What’s the difference between chili and taco soup? Broth, of course. There is more broth in taco soup is more so it’s thinner than chili. The internet tells me that chili is technically considered a stew. Go figure.

Fried till golden using coconut flour.

I’m Irish, so beef stew was a staple in our family. Trouble is there are so many carbs in most beef stew recipes. So with this recipe I have adjusted it to keep the carbs lower and introduce some other veggies that are lower carb to the mix.

This casserole tastes just like a zippy chicken enchilada without the major carbohydrate intake.

Serve this at your next family event instead of potatoes and you’ll save 30% of the carbs.

Can be a vegetarian entrée or a side dish. SUPER Yummy because as the squash bakes it becomes sweet.

We were really happy with the way it turned out and I think you could adjust the seasonings to your own taste if you want more garlic or more salt, etc.

When I was a kid my father traveled a lot. When he was gone, sometimes my mom would let us just fry up some hamburger meat and add a can of Campbell’s baked beans. We called it bean hash. I loved it.

Dieter Jessica made this meal on one of her first days of ZReduction. It was so delicious she wanted to share it with everyone.

If we had a gourmet comfort food category this recipe would be the first one. Its easy to make, very satisfying, and tastes delicious. A great meal for a rainy day.

What makes this Zola lasagna is a reasonable amount of pasta. Most lasagna recipes run at least 3 or 4 layers of noodles. This one has 2. And I promise, you won’t miss the other two layers.

This chicken casserole will remind you of chilies Rellenos. If you like those you’ll be a big fan of this low-carb dish. Simple to put together and toss in the oven. And Voila! Dinner. I serve with slices of avocado on the side dusted with a bit of grated sea salt.

One of my favorite Cajun meals is chicken mamou. Mamou in Creole is basically grandma. So this is “grandma('s) chicken.”

Talk about comfort food. This is the pure definition. Thankfully fat doesn’t make you fat so you can eat this at parties and not feel the guilt.

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.

A no sugar variation of my caramelized pears recipe. Still very yummy!

This is elegant comfort food. It’s sort of like the American version of the French dish called Coquille St. Jacque.

A delightful chicken dish that tastes very French. This is super easy to make and dieters are enjoying it all over the country.

These crepes are very low carb and EASY to make. You can even make them ahead and store them in the refrigerator or freeze them. I made them at the same time I was working on my seafood and sauce for the stuffed crepes but if you’re not that coordinated in the kitchen, you can make the crepes first and just store them. You do have to keep a close eye on the crepes as they cook. Don’t get distracted. It’s much less stressful to make the crepes and then make the sauce. Both come together really fast so you’ll be out of the kitchen in a jiffy anyway.

This dish can be made with chicken or is a perfect way to use up leftover turkey from the holidays.

For all you cabbage lovers out there, this recipe is a ZReduction take on a German classic. While you can whip this dish up in about 30 minutes, red cabbage tastes sweeter the longer you cook it -- so if you are on ZReduction and like your cabbage a little sweeter, cook it low and slow until the flavors mellow and meld to your liking.

This dish tastes very much like Shrimp Scampi that you might order in an Italian restaurant. The addition of cheese takes it over the top in terms of BIG YUM.

This soup can be served hot or cold.

This is a famous chili that probably should not even be called a chili. It was invented by two brothers who emigrated from Europe in the 1920’s. Of course, they lived in Cincinnati. When finished this will look sort of like chili but it’s served on spaghetti. There are no beans and it’s not spicy. It’s flavorful for sure, but not “hot.” Don’t let the list of ingredients throw you off.

This is a great Zola to Go! dish, perfect for those cold days for lunch.

It may not feel like it here in Chicago, but spring and asparagus season are just around the corner. Gear up with this flavorful soup.

I have designed several chili recipes for Plan Z. This is one of those that is very straightforward and simple. It doesn’t even have a lot of ingredients.

Pierre Franey was a cooking hero of mine. He was the original “60 Minute Gourmet.” I adapted this recipe from one of his and turned it into a wonderful diet meal.

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.

Dieter Claire invented this recipe by modifying the fruit parfait recipe and adding extra frozen strawberries. She says, "it's as close to ice cream as you can get." We agree.

This is a great crock pot recipe. Super simple but really tasty.

I had a hankering for bacon. My husband wanted mushroom soup. And this recipe was born.

It’s all the rage in the big city. Have a runny egg on top of your burger. Well, you can do that in ZReduction too! I just ate mine and I’m stuffed!

Celebrity Chef Jernard Wells knows soul food. While a lot of his food is quite decadent, he also loves greens, and shared his wonderful southern greens recipe in a local interview. What's great about it is it can easily be modified to fit ZReboot. His original recipe calls for sugar, but by replacing the sugar with your favorite sugar substitute, you can still enjoy this delicious recipe. 

This is a simple chili. It’s a takeoff from an old Betty Crocker recipe. Can’t get much simpler than that!

Two things I love about living mid-South: fried green tomatoes, and tomato pie.

When I was young I loved going to Chi Chi’s and ordering the chimichanga. Now that I know all the carbs from the tortilla it was wrapped in are a bad idea, I decided to make a lower carb casserole version.

A very quick and simple family dinner.

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.

At first you’d think chimichangas would be high carb. The good news is they have low carb tortillas at the grocery store that taste the same as the traditional. Look for the low carb versions.

Orzo is a wonderful, tiny pasta. This is the most requested side dish recipe I get from dinner guests–but watch your portion size. Enjoy!

Pasta doesn’t have to be banned from ZLife. You just need to limit it and monitor how you use it. If you keep in mind that a FULL portion is a half cup cooked you’re on the right track. And just eat it on a special occasion.

A unique way to stuff a chicken! From our dieting friend from Canada…Loretta.

The inside of this pie bake tastes just like Midwest comfort food. You won't even notice the potatoes are missing. It has just enough carrots to remind you how sweet they are. Same for the peas. The onion, celery and the mushrooms give it the depth of flavor you'll remember from childhood. The topping isn't your average pie crust. This one is low carb. So it's not like a biscuit either. I'm still trying to perfect low carb biscuits, so this is sort of a cross-breed.

I found this recipe online. I didn’t have to do much to make it Zola. It tastes very much like a cheeseburger. The way to make it exciting though is to make sure you pile on the toppings that you like on your burger. You can feed the whole family with this and no one will miss the bun.