That's one of the reasons I write Stomach Rumblings; to help people find alternatives to their favourite foods that we can make fit into the program! If you have a recipe that you'd like to see featured here, please feel free to email me so we can discuss either a guest post or else I can try and tweak your recipe to make it NS friendly!
I think you might be surprised by how closely some of my recipes can hit a craving- you might even find you like some better than the originals!
When I was a little girl growing up, one of my favourite comfort dishes was French onion soup. I remember my mother pulling the hot dishes out of the oven with cheese cascading down the sides. I thought about what is really in the soup, though, and realized with a few tweaks it could be a great flex lunch on Nutrisystem. It's not quite the same as the way my mother made it, but the flavour is still wonderful and I enjoyed every bite. It's well worth enjoying throughout the year... and having a bowl of my mother's at the holidays :)
I looked up several "diet" recipes for French onion soup and noticed that some of them were caramelizing the onions in water. Call me a purist, but calories or no calories, I think that's a terrible way to bring out flavour! We don't need a whole lot of butter, but we do need at least a little bit. Fortunately, the rest of the soup is so low calorie that it fits in just fine.
The other thing to note is what you use for your stock. Since here the flavour of the stock will have a huge impact on the flavour of your soup, you need something that is good quality. You can use whatever works best for you, but make sure you like the taste of what you choose. I prefer to make mine the old fashioned way with beef bones, herbs, and veggie scraps, and then just chill and skim it several times until all the fat is removed, but you can use a carton of stock if you have a brand you like.
French Onion Soup (Flex Meals):
8 cups good quality beef stock (20 calories or fewer per cup)
2lb bag of Vidalia onions, peeled and chopped into rings
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. butter
4 slices of sourdough bread or other low glycemic bread (between 80-120 calories and 1g+ of fiber)
4oz low fat Gruyere cheese
thyme, black pepper to taste
Simmer your stock over low heat while you chop the onions. In a deep frying pan, melt the butter. When it's ready, add the onions and cook over medium heat until they start to turn translucent. Turn the heat down to medium low, and stir frequently so the onions don't stick to the pan, for about 30 minutes. Caramelizing onions really brings out the flavour in this dish so it's worth investing the time! If you start to see brown spots, splash just a little of the beef broth into the pan and use it to deglaze the brown bits. Add your thyme and black pepper.
When the onions are nicely browned and reduced in size, add them to your stock pot and turn up the heat to medium. Finely grate the Gruyere cheese. Place the 4 slices of bread onto a baking tray and sprinkle with the cheese. Bake until the cheese is nicely melted.
Portion the soup into four bowls, and place a slice of the toasted bread into each bowl. Serve warm and enjoy!
I like to eat this soup with a bowl of "Caesar" salad so it feels like lunch at a restaurant. I just shred romaine lettuce and use Kraft Light Caesar dressing at 30 calories per tablespoon. I don't really care for croutons anyway, but if you miss them, then just use lighter bread like the Sara Lee Delights for your French Onion soup and toast the second slice to make up your SmartCarb with seasoning and make your own croutons for your salad! It's an easy swap.
The onion soup itself counts as free veggies plus an extra for the butter, the bread is your SmartCarb, and the cheese is your Powerfuel. This makes a deliciously decadent light lunch! It's definitely worth the time investment.
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