Eat Like a Mongolian

A couple weeks ago a light bulb turned on in this dim brain of mine.  

     On a "this crazy Mom needs to get out" whim, I grabbed Sheena (who posts on Monday/Wednesday) and we went for lunch.  AND because I'm cheap I flipped through my coupon book to see where we could go for the least $.  

Winner -  HuHot Mongolian grill

It was Awesome!  

(Do cool people still say that?  Do cool people even say cool?  I think I just aged 10 years)

How it works...

*Grab a bowl*pick a meat*pile on the goods*add yummy sauce*grill it up*

     I know I'm supposed to say that the best part is that you can eat some tasty stuff that is pretty healthy but the actual best part is you can go back as many times as you want.  All you can eat baby!  Believe me, I piled it high.  Even the grill master couldn't help but smile and acknowledge my giant food tower.  However it was full of veggie goodness so I could stuff my face pretty much guilt free.  Now if that isn't food freedom, I don't know what is.

Back to the light bulb...

     As I was plugging along eating my HuHot bowl I realized that if I could replicate it at home, success at achieving my goals for March would be that much easier.  Eating MORE food but with A LOT less calories is my kind of meal plan.


First attempt...

Here's what I've included in my food arsenal.  Cabbage, jicama, bean sprouts, soy sauce, coconut milk, tofu (which I haven't actually tried yet but I'm gonna pull up my big girl pants and give it a shot...eventually), and this rice vermicelli stuff.  More on this below.

I needed a healthy noodle and this stuff looked the part.  Plus it was on sale so I went for it.  

It has 209 calories per serving but I found that a little goes a long way.  I actually get double the servings out of the bag making a single serving only 100 calories, 0.4g of fat, and 1.1g sugar.  Not too shabby.

These noodles have to soak in water for a couple minutes so I started by breaking off 1/6 and getting them going..

Next I grabbed a palm size portion of pork.  I buy these in bulk when they go on sale, cut them into palm size pieces, bag em and stick in the freezer.  Makes it more likely I will eat healthier if I make it easy on me.

I slice it very thin and in half so it looks like I have a lot of pork.  I just threw it in my deep fry pan dry.

Then in no particular order I added the goods.  Here are the vermicelli noodles.

Then the jicama.  This oddly named veggie has a similar taste to water chestnuts but I like it better. No fat and not much sugar so again, almost no calories.

Next came the bean sprouts, about 15 calories per handful.  No fat or sugar.  Pile it on!

Last I grabbed a couple handfuls from my bag of mixed cabbage which included some carrots too.  No fat, 10 calories, and 1.5g sugar per handful.  Love it!  Look at that pile!

However, this stuff wouldn't taste very good without some sort of sauce/seasoning.  When at HuHot I used a Ginger sauce and broth that made it all heavenly.  Then I indulged and sprinkled just a little coconut on the top after it was grilled.  Good heck my mouth is watering right now.  Anyways, I loved it all so this is what I did for my homemade concoction.  

Since my full meal with the pork added in was only 300 pretty darn healthy calories,  I wasn't worried about adding a little with the sauce.  Here is what I added to the first shot of a tasty sauce.

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1/2 tsp ginger

1 Tbsp coconut milk

This only gave me about 30 more calories and 1g fat.  It wasn't bad but I couldn't taste the coconut very much.  So I called in the big guns.  Say hello to my little friend.

Torani Coconut Syrup.

We've gotten to know each other over a mug or two (or 50) of DP.  However, since my recent cut back he's been filling a little left out.  Time to revive the friendship.

Obviously if you go crazy with this stuff you'll by dumping in a lot of sugar.  If you only add 1 Tbsp then it only adds 45 calories (which are NOT the good kind but it bribes me to eat the GOOD kind) and 11g of sugar.  I'll happily use that 4% of daily value of sugar to eat a great meal.  It's not a horrible thing and it makes all the difference.  In the future I'd like to try a coconut extract.  I'll let you know when I do.

So there ya go.  Finished product = 345 calories, 10g of fat, and only 12g of sugar for one giant meal that keeps me full so I don't snack my way to dinner or bedtime.   Pretty dang good if you ask me!  My new model for a healthy diet...

Eat like a Mongolian!