Gourmet

Many people think the Thanksgiving turkey dinner is the most intimidating meal to make. It's not. Here's some rules to follow.

I love a steak while I am on Plan ZReduction. I have pretty much perfected my technique using a cast iron skillet but learned this method by asking a French restaurant how they did theirs.

I ordered this dish at a restaurant in town. It was so good I said, “I have to figure out how to make this myself!” It was that wonderful.

This is a wonderful potato casserole from the southeast part of France. Works great on a buffet too if you like room temp potatoes or have a chafing dish. For the LOWEST glycemic index, make this dish the day before you serve it.

My mother would have turned 101 this year. I still miss her although she’s been gone for decades. At parties, people often asked my mother if she taught me to cook. “Not like this”, she’d say. What she meant was she never taught me to be a gourmet cook. She never had the time or the audience to consume the kinds of foods I serve at parties. She was feeding 7 kids and a husband of Irish heritage who never wanted things too fancy. A good steak and a wedge of lettuce with Russian dressing was gourmet to my Dad.

This mushroom steak sauce is for those that want to make fancy food. The sauce can be served at a romantic dinner for two or even for company. It’s rich and yummy for sure.

When I made it the other night one dinner guest declared it “Birthday Cake Good.” Which means...who needs birthday cake when you can eat this kind of Big YUM stuff!

This Leek Tart makes for a lovely dish cut into wedges and served on a holiday buffet. You can also enjoy this as a light entrée with a salad.

This is an elegant meal you can serve to company or even just for a romantic meal at home. I served this with haricot vert (roasted French green beans). That kept the meal totally low carb.

A ZReboot version of a ZReduction classic. If you like lamb, this recipe is a home run.

Marinating lamb beforehand adds a depth of flavor that can't be beat. And when it's grilled, it's phenomenal. So, if you like lamb, this recipe is a home run.

This dish is both spicy and sweet. I made it on the less spicy side for my current tastes but it’s easy to have a jar of cracked red pepper flakes handy for those who want to add some to the final dish to make it “hotter.”

My husband found this recipe and made it for me. It was delicious! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

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. 

What will take the longest with this dish is peeling and taking the shells off the shrimp. You want fresh shrimp though and I’ll teach you how to boil down the shells to make it super-tasty. A deeper flavor is the bonus.

This is one dish I never thought I could pull off for ZReduction. But here it is! And it's delicious.

A tasty fruit salad that is a breeze to make and a unique way to round out a meal. 

If you don’t use liquor in your cooking you can leave that out. You can also flavor them with stevia flavorings. You could have coconut, vanilla or other flavors.

Since leafy greens are unlimited you can double (or triple) the amount of greens used in this recipe if you want to make it stretch.

Caramelizing onions makes the natural sugars in the onion come to the forefront. No more bold onion taste. Just dreamy flavor.

Most crème brulee recipes call for caramelizing sugar on top of the custard. I love that, but the sugar is too much. So, in this case, I made up a simple strawberry sauce to go on the top instead.

This dish made a wonderful lunch salad entrée in our Plan Z kitchen. I think it would be GREAT as an appetizer at a cocktail party, too.

This is my favorite new creation. I think I have made this three times in the last two weeks and that’s pretty much a record for me.

Cooking does not have to be complicated. In this recipe Chef Josh shows us how to make a simple and delicious puree using butternut squash. Easy. Decadent. Delicious.

The flavor and aroma of this dish will bring a little bit of the Italian countryside to your dinner table. Try it out tonight with your family.

These are delightful little jellies. They taste so French and so fresh! Not like those little gum-balls you can buy at the candy store.

A variation of my sea salt crusted snow peas recipe - but with snap peas!

The first time I made this, I put it on top of a wedge salad...and felt like I was eating dinner in a steakhouse. It's that good.

This is an easy and tasty meal that comes together in a jiffy. Big Yum!

You won’t ever need potato chips again.

Sinfully delicious...with only three ingredients.

Raspberry coulis is often used by dessert chefs to decorate your dessert at a restaurant. They put a swirl of it on your plate or maybe drizzle it over the top of the dessert. You can be fancy or plain as you wish.

Fancy on the budget, fancy on the fare, light on the calories, and delicious in the air! This dish will make you feel spoiled, even when you are on a diet.

The sauce will make you feel so gourmet and it’s very easy to make. You don’t have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen either.

This sauce can be served on steak, chicken, roast beef or even a full-flavored fish like sea bass or halibut.

This lovely, light peach salsa can be served with all kinds of light meat and fish. I’d serve it over grilled chicken. I served it last time with sautéed scallops.

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.

Some would call this fancy frou-frou food. Who knows what a remoulade is!? Foodies do. And foodies understand the concept of fusion food. This is one of those--a spicy combination of Cajun and Asian to make a new style of remoulade that can go with any kind of fish. I used flounder for my dish, but you can use any white fish. If you use a thicker one like sea bass you’ll have to cook it longer but the sauce won’t change.

This is a wonderfully light dessert. It comes together in a flash and can be mostly prepared ahead. Serve this to company and be proud.

This one is for the gourmet cooks in the group. You can do this with any standard mushrooms and make it less exotic but the gourmet cooks will appreciate the earthy flavor of the shiitakes.

The balsamic reduction sauce enhances the flavor of the lamb, making this a delightfully delicious gourmet meal.

"Little plates" restaurants have become all the rage. At two different Chicago restaurants I ordered a mushroom dish that I loved so much I had to figure out how to make it.

There are a few secrets to perfectly seared sea scallops. I’ll show you the tricks the professional chefs have shared with me. This dish is simple but taste fancy.

See how you can be “gourmet” and still be on a diet. My mission is always to make diet food that tastes good.

The famous chef Wolfgang Puck would call this Salmon Francoise. It’s so easy and yet so elegant.The only trick to this is to be ready to sit and eat as soon as it’s done.

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 one-project, one-plate meal. Fancy enough for a dinner party and simple enough for a Tuesday night after work.

There's only one ingredient in this recipe. The success is in the quality and the presentation. Cooking rookies and gourmets in a hurry can't beat this one for ease.

Mahi mahi is often mistaken for dolphin. That’s because it used to be called “dolphin fish.” But it's not dolphin. Mahi mahi is a fish. The fillets look sort of like tuna or swordfish.

This dish comes together in what feels like an instant. The sauce is quick and easy and because you are using cooked shrimp it doesn’t take long to cook.