Comfort Food

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.

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. 

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

This is a great comfort food. Make a big pot and pack it up for lunches on future days for a nice hot meal on a cold day.

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.

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.

This is a yummy, satisfying soup.

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.

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.

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.

Talk about easy to make. This soup is done in a flash. If you’re like me you’ll make a triple batch. You can freeze the portions and just add shrimp bits when you go to serve it.

This recipe is for all the vegetarians out there. Thank you dieter Nancy for this photo. For you non-vegetarians this makes a great side dish to go along with a grilled meat. We had this last night with grilled Andouille sausage and had a lovely meal.

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

This will taste pretty darn official!

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

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

This is an easy preparation with a homey vibe, when you want comfort food this is a sure bet.

What better time to have a spicy chili than when I am in lockdown, practicing social distancing. 

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.

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 recipe is compliments of Dieter Rose. Rose loves cooked cabbage and this does the trick for her. You can take this to work cold and reheat in the microwave too.

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

When you get into the second portion of ZReboot you can start to experiment with a little more carbohydrates. Try this at week 4 – 6 of ZReboot and see how you do.

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

These meatballs are my take on an authentic meatball recipe from New York city. These actually have a cheesy element to them that make them super yummy. BIG YUM!

Lobster thermidor is a classic dish. It’s decadent because of the cost of the lobster but it also has one of the dreamiest sauces you can possibly imagine.

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.

This is not the usual, thick, gloppy chowder since you are on ZReduction, but it will pass as a fancy, flavorful meal.

Feels just like you are eating in the French countryside.

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.

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.

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

I adapted this dish from one I saw in a recipe site. I had to change it quite a bit to “Zola-fy” it but it was just so decadent and creamy I had to share.

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 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).

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.

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

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.