Comfort Food

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!

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

This meatloaf makes six servings. When you serve it, remember that your crunch item is already included, so no breadstick or crackers with this meal.

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.

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 love to take the leftover turkey and transform it into something different. French comfort food. BIG YUM.

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

With this recipe, I’ve included about 25% of the pasta that would be in most similar recipes. That’s a big secret. Just cut it back. You won’t miss it. This casserole focuses on the veggies, the protein and the sauce.

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 yummy, satisfying soup.

This is a classic Italian dish. The one you order at Olive Garden will have WAY more pasta than this dish will have. That’s okay. The shrimp are the real star of this dish. Plus, you’ll be better off without all that starch. 

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

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

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.

You can have your stroganoff and eat it too! Most stroganoff recipes are served over rice or a big pile of noodles. You don’t have to do that. You have other choices.

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!

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 award-winning chili recipe won best Verde Chili by the International Chili Society in 2018. "Texas Chuck," the creator of this awesome recipe, made this chili using Mild Bills Spices (in case you're trying to get his authentic flavor).

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!

Fennel has a distinct flavor, but when it's roasted, the flavor mellows. If you like fennel, this recipe is great, and it's very easy to make.  

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

You know how you can eat mac and cheese and not even use your teeth? This had the same result. BIG YUM!

Amatriciana is an Italian dish. Simple and traditional. I am calling this American Amatriciana because the Italian version is made with guanciale or pancetta. I make mine with good ole’ American bacon. This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes. I hope you love it too.

This dish comes together in a flash. If you are doing beef enchiladas, I recommend red sauce. If you are doing chicken, I recommend you go wild and use a green sauce.

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.

Just like the one your mom made, only healthier. Everyone loves the green bean casserole. Here I'll show you one one that doesn't take much longer to make and it’s real food, not processed!

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

Made this tonight and was very happy with it – it would count as your vegetable and your meat although you could definitely add a green salad. I found it to be very filling.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.

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!

This tastes a lot like my mom’s bean soup with the addition of tomato and zucchini.

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.

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

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.

Our Plan Z “cafeteria” smelled just like Grandma’s house today. This beef over noodles recipe is a hit. Serve this when you have family around at holidays or other times when there’s a crowd.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.