Apples 'n' Cinnamon Oatmeal

Original: Instant Quaker Oatmeal

Packet oatmeal is easy and it's not bad for you, but it's fun to make your own oatmeal, not to mention fast and even cheaper than the packet stuff.

Ingredients
5 c water
3 small (or 1 large) apples, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/3 c brown sugar
~3 c quick oats (do not substitute rolled oats)

1. Add water, apples, cinnamon, and brown sugar to 3 qt saucepan.
2. Bring to boil.
3. Sprinkle in oats while stirring in order to avoid lumpy oatmeal. You decide how many oats you want. More for thick, pasty oatmeal; fewer for a thinner consistency. 
4. Cook one minute. Done! Fool proof, I promise.

Notes: 
This makes enough oatmeal for a family. Make half or less for two people.
I chop the apples in a food processor and immediately add them to the water to keep them from turning brown.
You can add a bit of salt (~ 1/2 tsp or so) to the boiling water before adding the oats. Salt-free is best for your blood pressure, though.
Once it's in my bowl, I usually thin down the oatmeal with some skim milk and extra brown sugar. You can add a butter pat, too, but that kinda ruins the healthiness of the oatmeal. Just sayin...

Better-for-You Steakhouse Lettuce Wedge Salad

D and I love bleu cheese. LOVE it. But since his heart attack, we rarely eat it because it is one of the "Five Forbidden Cheeses." The others are cheddar, parmesan, swiss, and cream. Basically all the really good stuff. >sigh<

Sometimes, though, we DO eat a little bit of bleu cheese in this delightful dressing.

I revamped this recipe from a restaurant recipes "knock-off" book, so I guess that makes it a knock-off of a knock-off. Whatever. It's yummy and easy. Don't let the number of ingredients intimidate you. You probably have all of them except maybe the chives in your cupboard and fridge right now. If you have decent knife skills (chopping tomatoes and chives), you can, quite literally, whip up this salad in 2 minutes flat.

Steakhouse Lettuce Wedge Salad

1 head iceberg lettuce, quartered
1 tomato, diced or chopped
1/4 c chopped chives
------------------------------
3/4 c light real mayo (Miracle Whip salad dressing will NOT work for this recipe)
1/2 c skim milk
1/2 tsp vinegar (to turn the milk into "buttermilk")
1/4-1/2 c bleu cheese crumbles
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp onion powder

1. Whisk or stir together dressing ingredients, reserving half of the bleu cheese to sprinkle over wedges.
2. Place each lettuce wedge on a separate plate and drizzle with dressing.
3. Sprinkle with bleu cheese crumbles, tomatoes, and chives.
4. Enjoy! Serves 4.

Notes:
The dressing will taste cheesier if you let it sit awhile in the fridge before serving. When I make this salad, the dressing is the first thing I prep. Then, I leave it in the fridge while I prepare everything else for the meal. Tonight, I baked some fries and grilled some boneless skinless chicken breasts to go with the salad. All of that took about 30 minutes, and I let the dressing sit in the fridge during that time.

I have provided the ingredient amounts as listed in the original recipe, but to be honest, I do not follow them closely. I usually REDUCE the mayo and/or INCREASE the milk b/c we like a dressing with a slightly thinner consistency. I usually use equal amounts of garlic and onion powders, too.

Tasty Southwest Chicken Salad Wrap

Found this gem on Pinterest. It didn't even require any better-for-you changes, but I do have a suggestion or two for you!

Tasty Southwest Chicken Salad Wrap
Original: Staple To-go Lunch

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast meat
2 ears of sweet corn, cut off cob
1-2 avocados
1 c prepared black beans
1/2 lime, juiced
1/2 c salsa (sodium alert!! buy the lowest-sodium salsa you can find or use home-canned!!)
Tortillas or lettuce leaves for wrapping

Preparation:
1. Prep and bowl all the veg first b/c this is an uncooked salad and you must not cross contaminate with your raw chicken! As follows:

2. Slice fresh corn from the cob and microwave a couple of minutes until heated through and corn-y smelling. Do not add salt or butter! You can also use a cup of frozen or canned lo-so corn if you can find it. It's summer, though, and sweet corn is in-season locally, so what kind of crazy person would NOT use fresh ear corn? Just sayin...  Dump it in the bowl.

3. Dice your avocado. I dice it right inside its skin and then scoop out the diced flesh with a spoon. Dump it in the bowl.

4. Add the beans to your salad bowl. You can used drained and rinsed canned black beans. Kuner's brand has no added sodium. Me? I buy dried black beans from the bulk food store, pressure cook them, and freeze them in zip-closure bags for exactly such uses as this.

5. Add the salsa and lime juice to the salad bowl and lightly toss everything. If you get too rough, you'll mush up all your avocado and turn it into a paste. Not good.

6. Cook and shred the chicken breasts. I pressure cooked mine because I was pressed for time (punny!), but I would have preferred to grill them with a little lime juice/cumin/olive oil marinade. Once cooked, I shredded the breasts with two forks. One fork to hold the breast still, and the other to pull the meat away. Whatever. Suit yourself on all counts.

7. Add the cooked, shredded chicken breast to your salad, wrap in a tortilla or lettuce leaf, and enjoy!

NOTES:
1. When my tomatoes start coming on, I'll show you how to can your own yummy, lo-so salsa. But, the tomatoes haven't been growing well here for the past two years (drought!) so even I have had to resort to jar salsa from the store. My stash of home-canned salsa ran out this past winter. This year promises to be a good tomato year, though, so better-for-you salsa is on the way, which makes D happy. He actually likes my home-canned stuff better than anything in the stores.

2. The recipe does not call for onions or garlic, but next time, I think I will add both for their zippy flavor. The only reason I didn't put them in this time was b/c I was headed to a fairly important meeting after lunch and I didn't want my breath to knock over the consultant.

3. As you can see in the photo, I added some fresh-from-my-mil's-garden cherry tomatoes. Surely you don't need me to tell you to add or remove anything you desire from the recipe. It's all about you, baby!

4. No limes? Use bottled lime juice. Or a lemon. Or bottled lemon juice. Just a tablespoon or so to give it a juicy little *pop*.

5. Hot sauce is always a hit at our house. Use your fave, but remember it adds sodium!

6. Tortillas. Ahh, yes, tortillas. Take it easy on them, ok? Have you looked at the fat and sodium counts per tortilla? Yeah, surprisingly high. But we still eat 'em around here b/c we love 'em. Right after 9/21, I tried making my own lo-so, lower-sat fat, whole-wheat tortillas b/c D absolutely revolted at the thought of never being able to eat tortillas again. My homemade ones were pretty good, but frankly, they took a lot of work. And tortillas need salt or they taste like wallpaper paste. Once in a great while, D will eat a lettuce wrap if I give him no choice. But usually it's, "Oh boy! Tortillas!" Still, lettuce, not tortilla, is your choice if you want a truly heart-healthy chicken wrap.

Better-for-You Bean with Bacon Soup

Have you looked at the sodium counts on the label of a typical canned soup? Good grief! Does anything need that much sodium to taste good? Why not just hand people a salt canister and tell them, "Pour this directly down your throat." Seriously.

Remember me telling you the amount of sodium in a teaspoon of salt? 2325 mg. And the recommended intake per day? <1500 mg. Wanna take a wild guess at the sodium in a half-cup serving of my favorite condensed soup? Are you sitting down? 860 mg. Over half my recommended daily intake in a half-cup of soup. Forget that.

Now, don't get me wrong. I grew up eating Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup at least once a week. Yep. My fave cake is one you've never heard of. Same with my fave soup. In fact, I still love Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup, but I cannot eat it anymore, at least not with a clear conscience. 860 mg. Half-cup serving. Insane. 

D never did like BwB Soup, so this recipe really has nothing to do with him. It's all about me, baby! I do not have sodium-sensitive high blood pressure, so maybe you think I shouldn't worry about it. Maybe you're right. But I do worry about it, so I went on the hunt for a better-for-you version. Or at least something I could turn into a better-for-you version. 

You'll notice I do not have a step-by-step photo record of this soup's preparation. That's because I had the "brilliant" notion of trying to wedge in its creation between an evening meeting and a promised swimmin'-hole visit for my kids and their friends. Because of my complete inability to manage time effectively, dear old D had to step up and do the middle steps while I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. As you can see, I do have a nice shot of all the kids at the swimmin' hole, but that doesn't do much to prove that I (we) actually did cook this soup. You'll have to take my word for it.

Better-for-You Bean with Bacon Soup

Original Soup 

Original Knock-off Soup (which I, in turn, knocked off to make even healthier)

Ingredients:

1 small bag of dried Great Northern Beans, prepared according to the instructions, except that you will add NO SALT when cooking them. 

[I soak according to bag instructions and then cook them in my pressure cooker. Once you've soaked them, cooking beans in the pressure cooker takes 2 minutes. No joke. Instructions in my pressure cooker recipe book for Great Northern Beans: "Cook 1-2 minutes at high pressure. Remove from heat. Allow pressure to fall of its own accord." Boom, baby! I'm telling you: you need a pressure cooker.]

REAL bacon!! [~6 slices]

2-3 carrots, diced finely

2-3 celery stalks, diced finely

1 medium onion, diced finely

4 c lo-so chicken broth

4 c water

2 packets of Herb Ox no-so instant chicken broth powder [more on this, below]

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp seasoning salt

1/2 a small can of tomato paste

1. Eight hours before you plan to cook the soup, start your beans soaking in some cool water. I use a glass Corningware bowl, making sure the beans are about 2" below the surface of the water. That's because the beans will swell--the entire point of soaking them, actually.

2. Toward the end of the soaking time, start prepping the other ingredients, as follows:

3. Fry up your bacon until it is crispy. You must fry it in a saute pan/skillet and NOT in the microwave. I know, I know! I know what you are thinking, "If you really want to be heart-healthier and still use bacon, you should be using turkey bacon. You should be cooking it in the microwave oven!" Shhh! Calm down. I told you this is better-for-you, not good-for-you. Moving on.

4. Remove your delightful and crispy bacon and set it aside to DRAIN on a paper towel. There! Ya happy now? We are draining the bacon. Now, dump MOST, but not ALL of the bacon fat out of the pan. You need to leave about a tablespoon or so.

5. Dump the carrots, celery, and onion into the pan and fry gently over medium low heat in the fat until they are tender. This will take a while, and will smell ah-may-zing. Remember, gently...gently. You do not want everything to be browned and crispy. Just soft, glistening and flavorful.

6. Now, put the veg, drained beans, lo-so chicken broth, water, instant broth powder, and bay leaves together in a stock pot and simmer over low heat for a couple of hours. 

I use Herb Ox Sodium Free Instant Broth and Seasoning packets for a couple of reasons. 1) it is the only no-so broth/bouillon base I can find in our area, and 2) one packet makes one cup of broth, which is nice b/c then I don't have to store unused broth and make sure to use it before it spoils (which, to be honest, is hardly ever a problem, anyway)

7. If you used a pressure cooker, some of your beans were probably mushy before you ever added them to the soup. They will make your soup very thick and rich. If you didn't use a pressure cooker, you'll want to mash up some of the beans after the soup has cooked. You can use an immersion blender, or just dip out a few cups of soup, mash the beans by any method that seems feasible, and return the mashed up beans to the soup.

8. You are in the home stretch, now! Chop the crispy bacon into tiny bits and add it, the tomato paste, and the salts to your soup, to taste. This is the salty part! 

Originally, I had not planned to add any salt to my better-for-you recipe. But the soup tasted like wallpaper paste to me, so I caved and added some salt. Even so, my soup has a LOT less salt in it than the Campbell's version (which is delicious, but still...800+ mg sodium per half cup serving?!)

9. Cook everything a little longer, maybe 30 minutes or so, making sure the tomato paste breaks up and gives the soup its characteristic orange-y color. I usually sprinkle some fresh or dried parsley over my bowl of BwB soup b/c that's what my mom always did. Feel free to do the same. Serve and savor. Makes just under a gallon of soup.

Better-for-You Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad

I am not a fan of creamy, heavy salad dressings. I also do not particularly like protein in my salad. Salad is veg. Period. Until 9/21, that is.

After D's heart attack, I had to get creative presenting chicken to him. Chicken became a maja playa in our meal planning. I tried chicken meatballs (the dish that pushed him over the culinary edge to despair), chicken marinara sauce (yuck!), and how many times a week can you eat a grilled chicken breast?? Still, Darin loved chicken Caesar salad before his heart attack, so I thought I would do a little research. I'll be honest: I had never eaten chicken Caesar salad (or any Caesar salad) before his heart attack (refer to the introduction of this post).

But after his attack, I thought, "Hmm. I wonder just how bad for you Caesar dressing really is?" The answer: really really bad. I don't think there's any way to make something so delightfully against-the-rules truly healthy, but here's my better-for-you version of grilled chicken Caesar salad. Just don't eat it everyday. Not that you'd want to. You have to dirty every dish in the kitchen to prepare it. >sigh< But if you want to make one of those "WOW!" meals that makes you really feel like a chef, this is your recipe, bay-bee!

I actually found my starting-point recipe online. It does not have the same creamy, thick mouth-feel as heavy Caesar dressing. Be ready for that.

Better-for-You Caesar Dressing
Original: Batman's Best Caesar Dressing
3/4 c olive oil (no mayo or eggs!)
1/8 c. lemon juice (I use half a lemon)
1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 Tbsp lo-sodium Woozy sauce (Worcestershire sauce)
1 Tbsp anchovy paste
1/2 tsp mustard powder (I have used regular yellow mustard in a pinch, 1 tsp)
2 garlic cloves, pressed
3 Tbsp non-fat plain yogurt
3 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheez

I have fairly small hands, but not that small.
These garlic cloves are huge. I shoulda used
only one. My dressing was re-he-he-HEALLY
garlicky! A chacun son gout, mes amis!

Put it all in your food processor and let 'er rip!
I let the dressing sit, blended, in the food processor while I prep everything else for the meal. Each time I notice it sitting there, I give it a whirl.

Salad (any combination of the following or, honestly, whatever you want, but boiled eggs will increase your fat and cholesterol counts. Just sayin...)
Greens (Romaine is my preferred, but if iceberg's in the fridge... good enough)
Fresh tomatoes
Black olives (drained and rinsed)
Onions (white, red, or scallions: whatever's in the house)
Fresh mushrooms

Croutons ready for oven

Croutons
one small baguette or 4 slices of sandwich loaf, cubed
light drizzle of olive oil
garlic powder

Grilled Chicken
~ 1/2-1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, equal-sized cuts
light drizzle olive oil
garlic powder

1. Prep your salad ingredients and layer them in a large bowl.

They will look so yummy, you'll be ready to eat. right. now.

2. Using a serrated bread knife, cut your bread into good-sized (1") cubes. 

3. Drizzle bread cubes with oil (it doesn't take much!) and sprinkle with garlic powder. Stir and toast in your oven. Check and stir several times. I use my toaster oven set on 375 degrees for about 15 minutes or so. Remove when toasty brown and crispy-edged, but still soft in the middle. You know how I determine doneness? I eat one... or two... or however many it takes.

Note: Burnt croutons really ruin the meal.

4. Once your dressing is safely mixed, and your salad is bowled-up, and your croutons are in the oven, deal with the chicken. Do the chicken last. You must avoid cross-contamination b/c the salad is NOT cooked!

5. Heat your grill pan to medium-high. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over the hot pan and rub it around quickly with a balled-up paper towel (to avoid burning your hand--duh!). There should not be any pooled oil in the grill pan.

6. Pat the chicken breast meat dry with a paper towel. 

7. Drizzle each breast cut with a tiny amount of oil and smear over the top (I use my fingers). 

8. Sprinkle each cut liberally with garlic powder. 

9. Place the cuts oiled-side down in the grill pan. 

10. While cuts are grilling, repeat steps 6-8 on their exposed upper surfaces. 

11. Grill maybe 5 minutes or so. Check for obvious, delectable-looking grill marks. Turn the cuts.

12. Grill another few minutes juuussttt until juices run clear. Resist the urge to overcook!

13. Remove from pan and cut into bite-sized chunks.

14. Assemble your salad: greens, chicken, croutons, and dressing. 

ENJOY!

Better-for-You Poppy Seed Cake

I am not a sweet eater...except for this cake.

And maybe the occasional brownie. And homemade vanilla ice cream. Oh, and Krispy Kreme donuts. And my Grandma P's sugar cookies at Christmas time. Seriously, though, I go weeks and do not eat a single sweet thing other than some diet soda. Really.

Anyway, my mom had shoulder surgery this week. She can't raise her arm, use her hand, bathe herself, you know...big fat "ugh". My next sister is doing all the cooking for her and Dad, but I did deliver Mom's fave snack, strawberry Twizzlers, the other day. And today, I decided to kill three birds (blog post, birthday gift for my little brother, and tasty nosh for Mom and Dad) with one cake plate by baking my version of our family specialty. Suzi can grind away at the meals--I'll do exactly what I want, thank you! Twizzlers and cake it is!

The cake is actually from my Aunt Susie's Home Ec class back in the day. [Sister Suzi's namesake] It is also her favorite cake. But my dad fell in love with it when my mom made it for him. My mom does not bake much. She is an excellent cook and baker, but she gets NO joy from baking. Still, she always baked this cake for special occasions. My mom says Dad even baked a poppyseed cake for her--once. She wondered why it was so small, and then he admitted that he ate most of the batter before baking it. Apparently, I come by that trait honestly. I have never met anyone else who has tasted Solo Poppy Seed Cake, let alone makes it. Which is a shame because it. is. delicious.

So... we love this cake, but it is a cake, and therefore a fatty and sugary delight. My dad, who himself had a heart attack at age 50 (18 years ago) and has assiduously ignored heart-healthy admonitions ever since, vociferously derides any and all health-conscious alterations of "normal" food. But you know what I always say: what he doesn't know, he'll scarf down like the hog he is (same danged character trait. oink oink). After D's heart attack, I created this better-for-you version. Dad has been eating it for the past four years and he doesn't even know it!

Better-for-You Solo Poppy Seed Cake
Original Recipe The original version of this cake is still my favorite sweet food of all time. Either my mom or my mother-in-law makes it for my birthday every year. When I married, my mom gave me the mixing bowl she always used to mix it in when I was a little girl. Yes. It means that much to me. But I am proud of the version I have developed. It tastes like the original, but it is significantly de-fatted and de-cholesterol-ed.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 c AP (all purpose) flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 stick margarine
1/2 c (4 oz) unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 c sugar
1 can Solo poppy seed filling
1 whole egg
1/2 c egg  whites or egg substitute from a carton
1 c fat-free sour cream or yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 c egg whites from a carton (this is not a misprint! you need these along with the others!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. Using an electric mixer of some kind, beat margarine and sugar together.

4. Add apple sauce and mix.
You know those little single-serving packs of apple sauce at the grocery store? Yep. Half-cup. Perfect.

5. Add poppy filling and mix.
That's poppy filling above. Looks like sludge, but smells and tastes heavenly.

6. Add the single whole egg and mix well.

7. Add the 1/2 c of egg whites / egg substitute and mix well.

8. Add sour cream / yogurt and vanilla and mix at low speed just until incorporated.

9. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix.

10. In a separate bowl, beat 2/3 c egg whites to stiff peaks.
Do yourself a favor: if you have a stand mixer, use it. If you have an electric hand mixer, use it. Don't be a hero. Leave hand whisking to the Food Channel chefs unless you want your arm to fall off. Here's the deal with the egg whites: you've got to keep them pristine or they won't form stiff peaks. No fat may touch them, so you CANNOT use the same batter-covered beaters that you just used to make the rest of the batter. WASH THEM. Me? I have a KitchenAid stand mixer with two bowls, so I mix all the other ingredients with my paddle. Then, I load the bowl of egg whites and use the whisk attachment to work them up. I realize that not everyone has a stand mixer with two bowls, however, so you'll figure it out. Just make sure no fat gets in the egg whites or you won't get the lovely, airy mountain of eggy beauty that will add the much needed lightness to this rather densely-textured cake.

11. FOLD stiffly-beaten egg whites into cake batter carefully with a very light touch. You are finished when batter looks about like it did before you began folding except for the fact that you can still see flecks of beaten egg white floating in it.

12. Spray a fluted pan with Pam and flour it.

13. Pour in cake batter. Wiggle the pan and thump it gently on the counter to settle the batter evenly.

14. Bake at 350-degrees on the middle rack for ~ 55-60 minutes. The cake will have a dark brown crust and a tester will come out clean when it is fully baked.

15. Let the cake cool for a bit, maybe 10 minutes or so. Then, invert the cake pan on a plate and allow to cool completely before lifting cake pan off the cake.

16. Now, for the iffy part. Sometimes, this fails for me. Lift the cake pan off the cake. You may have to joggle it a bit to loosen the cake, but if you greased and floured as you should have done, your cake will release and you'll have a lovely, dark-brown wonder of a poppy seed cake! If you have the "fool-proof" method for getting a fluted cake to release, please share!
Oh, and I cannot look at this picture without having an almost irresistible urge to stick a plastic flower down in the middle, exclaiming, "Look! A BuuunnnDDt cake!" like Maria Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

17. Optional: Set a large paper doily on top of the cooled cake and sprinkle powdered sugar over it. Remove the doily and you'll have a pretty snowflake pattern of sugar on top. I never do this b/c there's usually someone standing at my shoulder with a cake knife as the fluted pan lifts off the cake. It's that good. BTW, I think the fact that this cake is NOT iced/frosted is one reason I love it so. I do NOT like cake frosting.

Not a sweet eater. Really.

Herb Roasted Potatoes

Herb Roasted Potatoes

We had a vegetarian supper tonight. That doesn't happen very often, I'll be honest. But, the portobellos were calling my name at the mega-mart, so we had portobello "burgers' and herb roasted potatoes.

Herbs are weeds, you know. I don't care how black your gardening thumb is, you can grow herbs. And if you don't want to grow herbs, well... what's the matter with you!? I'm kidding, but seriously... try growing them. They can be EXPENSIVE in the grocery store, and you almost always have to buy more than you need, but they taste ah-may-zing right out of your garden. And they grow like weeds! They'll produce all summer. In fact, the more you harvest, the more those little suckers put out! I always plant a single plant of basil, dill, oregano, thyme, chive, and rosemary. That's enough. Plenty, in fact. Weeds, I tell you!

Try it. I promise. It's worth it. I use them fresh all summer, and when each plant starts to produce so much that I can't use the herbs fast enough, I start cutting them back and drying them on my porch roof on a towel (so the critters can't get them). You should see me crawling out my daughter's bedroom window to spread everything out "just so!" And let me tell you, when you rub some dried, garden-grown oregano between the palms of your hands into a pot of chili long-about December? Oh. my. gosh. Heaven in a bowl.

Herb Roasted Potatoes
Original Recipe: Herby Potatoes with Sour Cream

~1 1/2 pounds of cubed potatoes with skins
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp butter flavor
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Sauce
1/4-1/2 c light sour cream
1/4-1/2 c non-fat plain yogurt
2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, and chives

2. Chop all the herbs and combine with oil and butter flavor in a large bowl.
I used a knife to chop the herbs tonight, but I usually use my food processor. To be truthful, I provided you the herbs and amounts the recipe calls for, but I didn't measure anything. I almost never do. Just chop some herbs--whatever you have and to your own taste. For example, the recipe doesn't call for oregano, but I love oregano and I happen to have oregano in my garden right now. So... I used some oregano. It's got a flavor similar to that of thyme, which is also in my garden, so I used half oregano and half thyme. And I think rosemary tends to overpower everything else, so I used less of it than the recipe called for. And we love cayenne's spiciness, so I upped it to about a teaspoon to replace the salt the original recipe calls for. But you do what you want. Remember: be good to your heart! Salt does not equal flavor. FLAVOR equals flavor.

3. Wash, but don't peel, your potatoes. Cut them into ~1" chunks.

4. Add potato chunks to bowl and stir well to coat. The paprika and cayenne give the potatoes that orange color. Nice. They look all roast-y before they even go into the oven!

5. Spread potatoes in large jelly-roll pan (cookie sheet-type pan, but with low edges) or 9x13" baking dish.

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until tender.
How do you know the potatoes are tender? Well, I always spear a potato chunk right out of the pan while it's still in the oven and give it a quick "monkey" chew to test it. You know what a monkey chew is. You've done it. We've all done it. It's that quick, open-mouthed chew while blowing a hollow-cheeked "hoo-hoo haa-haa" to keep from burning your mouth when you're trying to eat something that is too hot to be eaten. You could do that. Or, just stick a fork in one chunk. Hardly any resistance? They're done.

7. While your potatoes are roasting, stir the sour cream, yogurt, and chives together.
I use light sour cream, not fat-free sour cream, b/c I just cannot stand fat-free sour cream. But I always cut it at least half with yogurt to reduce the total fat in the recipe. You do what you want. If you don't mind the grainy, less creamy texture of the non-fat yogurt, you'll be doing yourself a hearty (!) favor to cut out the sour cream entirely! Or you could use fat-free sour cream. Make it work for you. Just be good to your heart.

8. Serve the potatoes on the side with a burger (or a portobello mushroom like I did!) and a veg or fruit. The sour cream sauce is for the potatoes, but I used it on my portobello "burger" tonight instead of ketchup or steak sauce. Yummy yum yum. Oh, and for the record, I do not usually lay my burger on a bed of lettuce. I did that to make a pretty picture.