Transcript: Appetizers

Budget Health Nut
Episode “Best healthy appetizer recipes”

Joe Dias: Hi and welcome to Budget Health Nut, I am your host Joe Dias. The focus of our program is preparing meals for you under $25 while serving anywhere between 2 to 8 people, depending on our dish. In other word I am bringing you 5 star flavors on a 2 star budget.
Now here at Budget Health Nut we like to offer some smart choices for some tasty cooking while also reducing calories compared to eating out at restraints all the time. Now keep in mind, moderation is the key here and focusing on your portion sizes.
Today’s dish is going to be an appetizer special. Garlic parmesan peppercorn wings as well as some honey mustard wings. And then a crab stuffed Portobello mushroom, all along the side of a crispy bruschetta topped with some Roma tomatoes that I have marinating. So come join me in the kitchen, we will cook up some wings for you and serve the masses. All see you there.
All right we are rolling out the boconelia of appetizer specials today. We are going to throw a lot at you; it might even be the epic episode of budget health nut. Let me go ahead and start off with the tomatoes here.
I already had these like I said. We are going to go ahead and add a little bit of vinegar, balsamic. That is going to pull out some of the sweetness from those tomatoes. And we are going to put this on top of some bruschetta that I have already toasted up in the oven on a low broil. And make sure you watch those, they are only going to need about four minutes for those okay.
And I'm going to add a little bit of allspice, some garlic of course, and a little bit of green onion. All right now do not be afraid if you want you to add some fresh basil to this. Even throw a fresh rosemary sprig and they are, and some olive oil of course to add to the, to tie all those juices together, Mix it in their.
Okay so throw it in your container and those will be ready in about a good hour or so. Make sure they are chilled. If you can leave them overnight and you are going to plan the night ahead that is even better. And it gives those juices more time to marry up. I'm going to go ahead and throw these in the refrigerator.
Portobello’s they are very meaty. So what we are going to do is turn a couple of them upside down, we are going to go ahead and cut the stocks off. Do you hear something that is the sound of a fresh Portobello right there? Now the best way that I've found two hollow these out is to take a fork, and go ahead and does rub them down here. You'll find that the fins come off.
OK and what I like to do is save some of these and put them in my mixture of cream cheese and crab make it a little flat there, kind of like a little bowl but you are making. All right pull that all aside and is put that back into our sour cream your. I will stuff this one first. Now my cream cheese is at room temperature okay, we are going to add the crab.
You do not need to be too crazy with the crab because again that is a really rich flavor. We are going to go ahead and add some green onion and their, a little bit of parsley, and then get in there. Makes it all up, you can see it is starting to come together. So what we are going to do is take a nice hefty portion of this. Maybe half of that since we're only going to make two of these Portobello’s. Flatten that out, and then what you are going to do is top that with some breadcrumbs.
The breadcrumbs will brown when you bake this, and really what you are doing is you are baking this until you get the cream cheese to get a little oozy. Okay how about that? Very nice looking, Portobello’s are done and stuffed we are going to go ahead and pop those in the oven at about 350°, maybe eight minutes or seven minutes ride around until you see that cream cheese oozing out.
Let's go ahead and move onto my favorite the wings. All right now not many healthy things I can say about the wings. But what I can say is you are going to get a lot cheaper price if you go ahead and buy those at the store. Put some allspice along with some flour in there. We're going to make a dredge okay. You can even put a little bit of breadcrumbs if you want.
When I go to like even a happy hour, it is crazy they want you to pay $.50 a wing, one I can get 24 wings, no lie for five dollars in a big pack and you break that down and that is about $.20 a piece. I will go ahead and meet you over at the oven, pop in the Portobello, pop in these into the fryer. And in about 20 or 25 minutes these chicken pieces will be done. And then we will go ahead and make the sauce for them all right. So I will meet you over at the oven and I'll finish this up.
All right we have got those tomatoes marinating, we are going to go ahead and pop those Portobello’s in the oven here. And they should be done in about 12 or 15 minutes, right at about 350°. While those are in their, it is the perfect time to start wings at the same time. So while I have this grease heated up already, let us go ahead and pop some chicken wings right in their.
After you have a chance, maybe run out and get an electric skillet. As those seem to crisp up better, and they have a little bit more control over those, heat wise, because it has a temperature gauge. And what I am using his canola oil read and those still have a few minutes to go ahead so what I'm going to do is look those out, turn them around and once they brown on the other side. And then what I'm going to do is put a lid on them, once both sides are brown so that way they can cook throughout, again about 10 minutes, really firming up on the other side. It should only really take about two minutes per side to get brown. Okay let's flip these over. They will get a nice toasty brown coating on them, from that breadcrumbs and flour mixture that we used. We are going to watch them really close that they do not burn. And we will go ahead and start up the sauce for you.
What I'm going to do is butter, and then reduce a little bit of garlic in their, and then some parsley, and then pour it right on to our chicken wings. While it is hot go ahead and add your cheese. And I personally will guarantee that these are the best chicken wings that you'll ever pop into your mouth. And really all we have to do then is put the tomatoes on the bruschetta.
Whew all right, the appetizer special. Finally I get to dig in your and I will tell you there is a lot of components going on in this dish. So do not let that deter you because it feeds a lot of people. Again we are joined here by Andra Millian and again I appreciate you coming by.
Andra Millian: Thanks Joe.
Joe Dias: No problem. Then give us your synopsis and tell me what I did well.
Andra Millian: On the crab, you have garlic in here.
Joe Dias: Of course.
Andra Millian: And as an herb, garlic is a crap antidote. So if there is something wrong with the crab counter acts it. So it helps was crab poisoning, and so does the parsley, for meats that are not so great. That is why they put all those things on the plate so much. And you say that you cooked these in canola oil?
Joe Dias: I had to. Yeah I really did not have much option. I know that it's not the healthiest choice to do. But opposed a deep frying I figured it is the at least happy medium.
Andra Millian: Right and the two best oils to high heat that are not going to just turn into trans fats and be horrible in your system are olive oil in canola oil.
Joe Dias: Okay so unknowingly I did a pretty decent job.
Andra Millian: Right and those are the two oils that can really handle that heat. That is still good for you. Beer great, again we could do light beer even though they have low-carb beer and things like that.
Joe Dias: Sure low-carb flavorless beer.
Andra Millian: And watch your portions. This is a party food so again.
Joe Dias: Well for the Two of Us…
Andra Millian: Yeah This Is Just a feast. But you know say this is a buffet or a picnic or something you know again protein size for one meal is the size of a deck of cards. You can have as much vegetable as you want so as much of this green stuff as you want.
Joe Dias: Well as far as calorically is concerned, again I did some research on them. I'm looking at about 150 to 200 on them for the Portobello’s. And that is for half of the Portobello. So again to all ones will feed four people. I'm looking at about a hundred, because I think the white bread, 150 a serving of the bruschetta, and then about 50 cal for each wing.
So I'm only going to have two of those, I'm trying to cut it back. This is kind of one of those things I would think we would have before we went out for the evening. And just fill up our bellies a little bit and then go out and get snookered. Anyway let's go ahead and dig in and see we got I'm going to start with this Portobello. I'm going to do the sampler platter for one of these each and how bout a wing.
Andra Millian: I am going to try one of these this is the mustard?
Joe Dias: That is the honey mustard yeah.
Andra Millian: All right let me take some veg.
Joe Dias: That is awesome. Very good, all right will that is about it for this episode. Again I threw a lot that you've don't be afraid of making this dish though. For the Super Bowl special or whatever you got coming up here the World Series or what not or July 4. Give me your e-mails and see what you think about all of this. I look forward to seeing you next time. Cheers.
Andra Millian: Cheers.
Joe Dias: Thanks Andra.
Andra Millian: Thank you.