Comfort Food

This is fast to make and is a wonderful comfort food addition to your recipes.

This tastes amazingly like gooey apple pie! This is delightful. Just like Grandma used to make.

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.

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

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.

When you are in the ZReduction portion of Plan Z you will not be eating the skin of the chicken or any of the dark meat. Breast meat only.

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

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

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!

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

You’ll think you’re eating at an Italian Grandma’s house when you taste this.

Chris’s cousins sent us a HUGE box of fruit as his get well wish. There are only two of us, so in order to use the fruit I have had to get creative! Oh, my, these are yummy!

Everyone loves pumpkin, right? Well, how about a tea bread that’s made with pumpkin? Sort of like banana bread. Or even make it with sweet potato puree.

When you need some serious cold weather comfort food, ratatouille hits the spot. This shortcut ratatouille-inspired recipe was submitted by dieter Angela. She Zolafied the original recipe and created a delicious ZReduction veggie sauté that can be made in less than half the time of a traditional ratatouille.

This lasagna has no noodles. Standing in for the noodle layers are zucchini sliced the long way.

This is a wonderfully moist meatloaf. It has a kick from the Cajun spices but not all that much and you can adjust according to taste. This transports well to work.

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!

This dish is Italian comfort food. I curl up on sofa with a bowl of this and watch a movie. You can go totally low-carb with this one and make it without the pasta. Tastes just as good. This also makes a great casserole addition to a pot luck party.

I love this soup. You can make this with leftover turkey and have a colorful way to use your extras.

You could call this the “adult version” of Sloppy Joes.  It does have some ZIP to it. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the ingredients list. The recipe is worth it. And you probably have most of these ingredients in your pantry.

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

"My mom wasn’t a cook which I think I’ve told you, so when she made pork chops she would put them in a dish, pour French onion soup (Campbell’s from a can) over them and serve it with applesauce.

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.

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.

There’s something about the potential of smelling apples baking with cinnamon and nutmeg that conjures up fond memories of my mother in the kitchen. She taught me as a small girl to make apple crisp so I did it often. This also makes a wonderful little breakfast the next day.

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!

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.

Dieter Rebecca first had this warm and rustic side dish while in Ireland on a road trip in 1994. These mushrooms where in every Irish B&B Dieter Rebecca visited. She loved the recipe so much she recreated it for Plan Z! Hope you enjoy.

A very quick and simple family dinner.

Everyone has their Thanksgiving traditions; especially when it comes to food. Do you ever think about breaking tradition and making something different?

I’ll admit it. I found this inspiration recipe online. I did not have to change it up much to Zola-fy it..it is soooo good!

This soup is super easy to make.  If you are a fan of southern food this will hit the spot.

You have a hankerin’ for Fried Chicken? This will fit the bill.

Serve in soup bowls with a protein of choice. In Z2 this is your veggie portion. You can have plain salad greens on the side if you need more. It’s very filling though.

This is a remake of Beef Bourguignon. Who can resist this traditional French dish? So lush-tasting. It just about melts in your mouth.

I don’t eat potatoes very often but these are worth the splurge a few times a year. The yellow potatoes they are made from in my recipe are lower in carbohydrates than a Russet potato, so that’s a bonus, too.

Light and dreamy. If you like pumpkin you’ll love this smooth and easy dessert.

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

Most folks think of chicken wings as being a guy thing and even a sport fan thing but anyone can love this dip! I served it as a breakfast buffet item and it was hands down the dish that got the most comments and compliments. I think it was because it was so unexpected. The comments came from men and women alike but I must admit the guys were the ones who went gaga over this.

A traditional Italian meal made the Plan Z way. My husband declared this one of his favorite meals of the year.

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.

This recipe makes a yummy vegetarian lunch or side dish to go with a protein. I also put it in Zola to GO! because it can travel to a buffet.

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.

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

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.

We have to thank Dieter Claire for inventing this recipe. She modified the fruit parfait recipe and developed a strawberry "ice cream" recipe and this recipe with frozen mandarin oranges. She says, “it’s like an orange creamsicle.” YUM!

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

My husband loves shrimp and grits. His mother was from Arkansas and they ate grits often. Trouble is grits are very high carb. Traditional grits are made from cornmeal. I took an inspiration recipe and came up with my own version of shrimp and grits. There is just enough corn in here to help you get the corn flavor without the cornmeal. And there’s enough cheese in here that even though you’ll be using almond meal (aka almond flour) for your grits base, you won’t taste the almond.

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.