This is mostly not a diet-friendly recipe. Mostly.

Happy Valentine's Day! If you aren't with the one you love today, then love yourself. Make it a day to treat yourself, do something that makes you feel good, and forgive yourself for anything you feel you did to hurt yourself. Aw. Doesn't that feel nice?

Last night my friend came over and between the two of us (and a brief visit from my old roommate) we killed 2 bottles of most excellent wine, and almost an entire pot of homemade French onion soup. This is not the dried up "French onion dip" stuff in the packet that you mix into sour cream and dip Ruffles into. Although that dip is delicious, and I love Ruffles.

This was my modification of a recipe I found on Pioneer Woman, but I cut the time requirements down by almost half, and used half the butter she called for. That woman loves her butter, and I'm sure her dishes are gorgeous and delicious, but she is also a rancher and works with cattle and horses and children and large swaths of ranch land, so she probably needs all the calories she can get. I am a programmer with an ass to show it, so I felt confident cutting my butter in half (actually it was more like 1/3 a stick) and using SmartBalance butter. SB butter has omega-3 oils in it, so you can feel heart-healthy when you use it as well.

Onions also release plenty of their own liquid when they cook, so as long as you control the temperature in the pot, they cook down in their own liquid, coaxed slightly by a little butter and oil.

Honestly, next time I make this, I'm using even less butter. I just cannot imagine using an entire stick of butter in this dish. It would be way too heavy.

Here's my version. Believe me when I tell you that this was incredible. Delicious. I had two bowls, then began just breaking off pieces of French bread and dipping it right into the pot, scooping out large, soft pieces of onion and soaking the bread with that rich broth... oh my. After a week of seriously keeping "on plan", I thoroughly enjoyed this. And given that my plan today includes 1) a 5-mile run, and 2) cleaning out my entire garage, I feel like I can use all the calories I can get.

Oh. Two more warnings about this soup. First, it makes quite a few servings, but most people will not be satisfied with just one bowl. If you're figuring out portions, assume two bowls per person. Second....its a soup, made with onions. Six of them. And garlic. Covered with cheese. Things happen during digestion when you eat onions and cheese. I'm just saying, be prepared for the following day.

And now the recipe!

French Onion Soup

6 yellow onions
1/4 stick (or less, really) Smart Balance omega-3 butter
2 tsp olive oil
3/4 cup of white wine
3 cloves garlic
4 cups low-sodium beef broth
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I would normally have used my own homemade stock, but I was too strapped for time to defrost one of my tubs)
Worcester sauce
French bread, cut into 1-inch rounds
Gruyere cheese (if you want to make this more diet-friendly, use a mix of grated low-fat mozzarella and a few gratings of asiago or parmesan cheese. But the decadent melted Gruyere is kind of worth it.)

Prep it!

Slice onions in half from top to bottom, and then slice horizontally so you get smile-shaped slivers. You want them thin, but not too thin. I used a very sharp knife. Make sure your knife is VERY sharp - onions have a slippery film between layers, and if you're not careful your knife can slide off and come crashing down on top of your fingers. I have scars to prove that this is true. So use a SHARP KNIFE when slicing onions, or a mandolin. And take your time. Focus on this part. The recipe does not include blood.

Make it!

Add your butter to a large soup pot, and turn heat to medium-low. Add onions, then drizzle the olive oil on top. With a wooden spoon, give the onions a good stir to coat with the oil, and to get the butter melting started.

A tip: Try to use a Dutch oven or a thick-bottomed pot. Aluminum pots may heat up too fast and may cause you to burn your onions if you don't watch the heat enough. (I used a Calphalon hard-anodized pot; its got a really thick bottom, much like me.) If you have thin-bottomed pots, keep the heat lower and keep a close eye on your onions. You want them to brown, but not burn.

Now, the Pioneer Woman's recipe calls for you to cook the onions on the stovetop for 20 minutes, then to cover them and put the entire pot in the oven for an hour. I do not have an oven, nor did I have an hour. I kept the onions on the stovetop, for about 30 minutes total. I kept the heat slightly lower than medium, and kept stirring the onions to allow for even browning and to prevent burning. They required more babysitting than if I had put them in the oven, but they cooked evenly, browned up wonderfully, and were done in less than half the time of PW's recipe. I love her recipes, but sometimes you just have to adapt.

TL; DR? Just carefully allow the onions to brown and soften for about 30 minutes on medium-low heat, stirring regularly to avoid burning.

When the onions are brown and soft, turn off the heat and immediately pour in the wine. Then turn the heat back on. Alcohol can burn, so this step is just practical for avoiding starting a fire.

Allow the wine and onions to cook on medium-low for about 5 minutes. The wine should reduce and thicken slightly. Add in your broths, and set the heat so the soup simmers but doesn't boil.

Chop your garlic into a fine dice, and add that into your simmering soup. Add a few dashes of Worcester sauce.

Cover, and let the soup simmer on very low heat for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, take your sliced French bread, and give it a quick spray of butter or olive-oil flavor cooking spray (PW slathers more butter on the bread, but I just don't roll that way). Broil the bread so it gets really toasty. If it burns a little, that's ok. It needs to be dry and hard to stand up to the soup.

Grate your Gruyere, or other cheese.

When the bread is done toasting, ladel a scoop or two of soup into a thick oven-safe bowl, and place a toasted bread slice on top. Toss a good amount of cheese on top of the toast, and put the bowls back into the oven so the cheese can melt.

When the cheese has melted on top of the toast (should take about 5 minutes), carefully remove the bowls (USE OVEN MITTS, THE BOWLS ARE HOT). I served my bowls on a cool plate so I could carry them without burning myself.

Enjoy this. I did. Now I am off to run.

Oh my.

Well the weekend was great, and I ate too much, and suddenly school is stressful as midterms are arriving, and work just got 10 times more stressful, and suddenly I'm a bad, bad blogger.

I did make my chili on Superbowl Sunday, and it won Best Overall Chili in the cookoff. My vegetarian chili took the best vegetarian chili prize as well, and since that's not really a family secret I will post the recipe. According to WW, its right around 2 points per serving. Enjoy, and then I am getting my butt back to work.

The Semi-Pro Chef's Award Winning Vegetarian Chili

1 large can or 2 regular cans black beans (I tried using dry beans that I soaked overnight, but I have the worst luck with this, so I ended up using canned)
1 Red onion
1 Green bell pepper
1 Red bell pepper
1 Pasilla chile pepper
1 Jalapeno pepper
5 medium-sized red skin potatoes
1 tomato
1/2 bottle of vegetarian BBQ sauce (most BBQ sauce is vegetarian, but check the label before using if you plan to serve to strict meat avoiders)
1/2 jar of salsa (I used a "Medium" heat Herdez brand - which ended up being extremely hot. Maybe taste-test before adding salsa.)
1 can of corn, drained
1 tablespoon chipotle-smoked red pepper flakes (these were a Christmas gift - no idea where you can get them. So they're optional.)

Step 1 - Preparation:

Slice all peppers in half, and carefully seed the Jalapeno and Pasilla peppers. Coat the outside of the peppers with a little olive oil (I just use the kind in the spray can). Sprinkle a little salt on top, and put in to broil until the skin begins to bubble and char. Remove and allow to cool.

Cut up potatoes into bite-size chunks. Also give these a good spray with oil, and dust with the chipotle pepper flakes if you have them (if not, just salt and pepper is fine.) Roast in oven until the potatoes are cooked through.

Last, quarter your onion, and give it a coating of olive oil. Roast this guy as well until it smells sweet and its slightly soft.

Step 2 - Compilation:

In a large cauldron (or pot, whatever), add your black beans. No need to really drain them if you use canned, but if you soaked your own, drain before adding. Begin to heat over medium heat.

Take all your roasted peppers, and slice into appropriate sized chunks. I cut the sweet peppers into pieces a little less than 1-inch square, and the hotter chilis into smaller slices, since they're more for flavorful heat than color or taste. Add the potatoes, cut peppers, and sliced onion to the mix.

Add the BBQ sauce and salsa to the pot. At this point also add the chipotle peppers if you have any.

If you have any super-secret chili spices, feel free to add here too.

Allow the chili to cook over medium for about 30 minutes or so. Check it frequently and stir often to prevent burning and too much thickening. Add more salsa, bbq sauce or water (or beer) if it seems to be getting too pasty.

After about 30 minutes, dice a whole tomato and add to the pot. Once you add the tomato, open the can of corn and drain it well. Spread corn out on a baking tray into a thin layer, and coat with chili powder, salt, and pepper. Broil until the corn is roasted and starting to brown/blacken. Add immediately to the chili.

Stir and test for heat, spice, thickness, etc. Adjust to your taste. Enjoy with chopped green onion and cheese on top, or just plain the way we ate it at the cookoff!

Monday Morning Weigh-In (Late, I know):

Previous: 158
Current: 157
Pounds lost - 1
Total pounds lost - 7.4

I kind of cheated on this. I knew after Superbowl I'd be bloated so I didn't weigh myself on Monday. I gave myself 24 hours to clean out, and weighed myself this morning. All last week I was hovering between 155 - 157, so I'm comfortable posting 157 today. Hope that's not cheating...

Chefs Don't Fear the Grouper (or other whole fish)

Totally just made a Blue Oyster Cult reference...get it...oyster..fish...*cough*

I am cash-strapped until Friday so I've been repurposing my leftovers like mad. This morning I found myself staring at a generic-tupperware container of fish that I cooked last week, which ended up being whipped into an egg-white omelet and was a really really delicious breakfast. But how did that fish get into my fridge to begin with? It all starts in the Asian supermarket.

I love the Asian supermarket, its one of my happy places. I love the fish section specifically - its a huge, long area in the back of the store, with shallow pools of live crabs (several kinds of crab), oysters, clams, other mollusks, several kinds of squid and octopi, shrimp with heads and tails, omg. All live. Then they have giant tanks of live catfish, lobsters, tilapia, bass, etc. You pick out a fish, and the guys behind the counter fish it out and whack it over the head with a giant club until it dies. I kid you not - they bang live fish on the head with a wooden bat until it is dead (or at least somewhat dead - I've seen fish still alive get fileted before. FRESH.)

In addition to the live tanks, they have a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE long fresh fish section. Whole fish displayed right in the open, on ice, for you to choose. Giant red snappers, basses, trouts, salmons (they had whole salmon the other day which were at least over 4 feet long), pompano, tiny butterfish, mackerel, etcetcetc. You pick the fish you want and tell the guy how you want it prepared - you can get it whole just like that, guts and head and tail intact. Or they can clean it, remove the scales, head, etc. You can even get the whole thing fried for you right there - they'll fry it lightly or double-fry it for extra-tasty-crispy fish. Its basically the most amazing fish store ever. You'll never buy fish in your local Ralphs or Jewel again once you realize what you're missing.

Anyway, last week I noticed that the pompano looked REALLY good. Bright, firm, and fresh with clear eyes and plump little bodies. I had to have one. So I fought the throngs of shoppers (its kind of a wild place to be) and picked out the nicest looking one, and had the guy behind the counter remove the scales, guts and tail. He wrapped the rest up and I took home my whole fish (minus tail).

Have you ever cooked a whole fish before? If you have then hopefully you know how great it is, if you haven't - do not be afraid. If you get the right fish, and cook it right, you 1) won't stink up your entire house, and 2) won't miss out on all the tastiest parts of the fish (I'm talking the HEAD MEAT - its the best).

Some very good forgiving non-stinky fishes for attempting this are: pompano, tilapia, butterfish, and small snappers. Only attempt oilier (and therefore fishier) fishes if you are a seasoned pro - such as mackerels. If you have an oven large enough to cook an ENTIRE salmon - can I come over?

Roasted Whole Pompano

1 whole pompano fish, cleaned and scales/tail removed (keep head on)
4 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 lemon - 1/2 sliced into thin discs, the other half reserve for juice
Sea salt
Black pepper

And that's it.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Take your whole fish and give it a good rinsing. Pat it dry. Name it if you want - its going to watch you prepare it, so make peace with it now.

Using a very sharp knife, slice 4 slits in each side of the fish, running from the top to the bottom. Don't cut it all the way in half - what we're doing is just "scoring" the skin so the meat can cook. As fish meat cooks, it plumps up a little, so it needs room to move.

Inside each slit in the fishes sides, stick the slices of garlic. Cover each side of the fish with a LITTLE bit of salt and pepper - a little goes a LONG way. Its been living in salt water its whole life, it doesnt need to drown in it now.

Place the slices of lemon and more garlic if you want inside the belly of the fish. Its been cut open to remove the guts.

Before place in the oven, use the rest of the lemon to cover the fish with juice. If you are feeling punchy, put a garlic clove in its mouth. This is just for style though.

Cook your fish until its done. It does not take very long, so keep an eye on it! Maybe 20 minutes or so, but it depends how big and thick your fish is. Keep an eye on it.

When its done, the meat will be opaque, white and flaky. The skin may stick at first to the meat, but you can carefully pull it apart.

There is very tasty meat behind the fishes eye and above near its skull. Do not be afraid to pick around in there to get it. In traditional Chinese households, the guest of honor is served the head meat because it is apparently the most succulent (so I was told when I was the guest of honor in a Chinese household.)

Serve with roasted vegetables, salad, rice pilaf, etc. Properly stored, leftovers last up to a week (though if you have a lot of people you probably won't have leftovers). And never be afraid of the whole fish again!

Waiting, and Preparing for the Weekend

So tomorrow evening is New Year's Eve. Part of the program I'm on emphasizes preparation, both mental and physical. NYE is going to be a feast of junk food and booze; the booze is easy enough to avoid - I'm driving, so I will do my evening champagne toast and stay sober the rest of the night. I already know there will be DUI checkpoints all over Anaheim, and I don't want to risk anything. Its the food I need to prepare for. Chips and salsa - oh, that's my weakness. I'll need someone to follow me with a flyswatter to keep my hand from reaching into the bowl too many times.

I also have a Very Important Person flying in to see me tomorrow. This VIP can eat and drink whatever he wants tomorrow as far as I am concerned - I am just happy to see him. But this person will be hungry tomorrow, and doesn't get much home cooking where he lives. One of the things I love doing for him is cooking him a healthy, delicious, hearty home-cooked meal. So far I've done shrimp scampi, homemade mac-n-cheese, beef stew, and roasted acorn squash - and that was just in his kitchen.

I think for tomorrow I'm going to keep it simple, and have a delicious roasted chicken waiting for him when he walks in the door. Its excellent on its own, or pulled off the bone and slapped into a sandwich. And it makes the whole house smell...well, like home.

ROASTED CHICKEN

1 Whole "fryer" chicken, rinsed and giblets* removed
1 lemon
2 tablespoons of butter, sliced to 1 tablespoon each
4 garlic cloves (more if you're like me and cannot get enough)
Kosher salt
Pepper
Thyme (fresh if you have it, but dry will do)
Sliced vegetables such as zucchini, onions, red bell peppers (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350. Rinse the whole chicken and pat dry.

Take a fork and stab the lemon all over; go ahead, take out your stress. Imagine its a particularly irksome coworker or the guy who knocked into you on the sidewalk. Shove the stabbed lemon up inside the cavity of the chicken. Then, put the garlic cloves inside the chicken cavity as well. If everything keeps sliding out, use a toothpick or two to pin the cavity closed.

Next, take the two tablespoon-sized pats of butter, and slip them under the skin over the breasts of the chicken, one over each breast. This will help keep the leaner breast meat moist.

Season the chicken by first sprinkling the breast side with the salt, pepper and thyme. Then, place the chicken breast-side down on the baking tray/roasting pan, and season the other side. Don't be afraid to move and pat the spices between the wings, legs, and sides of the bird.

Place the chicken breast-side down in the oven, and roast slowly for at least one hour, or until cooked all the way through. To test for doneness, use a meat thermometer and take an internal reading - should be at least 165 degrees. Or, if you don't have a thermometer, slice a knife through a thick part of the chicken meat. If the juices run clear, its done - if they are even the slightest bit pink, the chicken needs more time.

If you opt to cook the vegetables, give them a quick coat of cooking spray and place them on the baking pan when you have approximately 30 minutes left of chicken-cooking time.

Check on the chicken often, as its just a few minutes difference between "juicy and delicious" and "dry chicken-salad fodder". The butter helps keep the breasts tender, as does cooking it breast-side down. If you like crispy golden skin, crank the heat up for the last few minutes or so until the skin gets crackly-brown.

I haven't had a person turn down this chicken yet. I even did a modified version of it for Christmas dinner, and it was gone in a flash. This is a really basic roast chicken recipe - you can make your own modifications. Stuff it with an orange, or with stuffing and sausages. Try rosemary instead of thyme, or oregano and basil for an Italian flair. Its up to you.

I cannot wait for my VIP to get here. Now I am off to the store to pick up a chicken so I can greet him with hugs, kisses, and the coziness of a home-cooked meal.

*If you have a dog, feel free to give them the giblets right out of the chicken. Yes, its raw, but how else would a wild dog eat their food? Snowy loves her chicken hearts and kidneys so much, she will sit at my feet and wait for them to magically drop down to her when I prepare a chicken for dinner.