Comfort Food

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

A good old American favorite with a Mexican twist.

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

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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. 

When you buy corned beef, there is a little packet of corned beef spices that accompanies the brisket. The secret is to use that and ADD your own corned beef spices to the mix -- after you toast them.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

This will taste pretty darn official!

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

We made this during a snow storm, the taste took off the chill of the day.

This soup can be served hot or cold.

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!

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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!