Weight Watchers Tips for the Holidays
By Cathy Thomas, Orange County Register
Original story can be seen at: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-278383–.html
Judith Norton is someone who gets things done. My longtime friend envisions creative solutions where others just see quandaries. If a task requires endless energy, that’s never a problem.
Before the holiday season last year, her Weight Watchers group was developing strategies to avoid packing on pounds at parties.
Norton, an accomplished cook and a senior corporate trainer, thought it would be a great if members had a collection of healthy recipes that could be used for holiday entertaining. To make sure everyone understood how delicious and easy-to-make the recipes she had chosen were, she invited them to her home for a cooking party. A sign-up list for ingredients was circulated at the meeting, so everyone contributed to the cost of the event. And when they showed up, all the components for each dish were ready at stations inside and on the patios of her Huntington Beach home.
I wangled an invitation to this year’s cookathon, what she calls the second “healthful cooking adventure.” Twenty participants showed up the rainy Saturday before Thanksgiving. With the oh-so-wet patios off limits, Norton improvised work areas in her garage as well as her kitchen.
They divided into groups and set out to tackle 12 recipes.
“This close-knit group has been together for over two years, and they are really unique. They are so supportive of one another and they interact so well,” said Lorraine Clausen, the Weight Watchers leader of Norton’s group that meets in Long Beach. “The event shows that you can give a party and not overdo.”
Joining the faction in the kitchen, I watched as Norton gave a quick tutorial on poaching salmon. She explained that she uses a turkey roasting pan that has a lid because she doesn’t like to buy specialized pieces of equipment if she already owns something that works.
“Everyone thinks it’s difficult to poach salmon, but it is so easy,” she said lopping off a small portion of tail end and wrapping the skin-off salmon fillet in a double layer of cheesecloth (creating handles with excess cheesecloth on both ends). She lowered the fish into the roaster, submerging it in a mixture of water, white wine and fresh dill. She placed the pan over two burners and put on the lid. She turned the burners on high and set a timer for 12 minutes.
“If it isn’t cooked after 12 minutes, you can always return it to the pan and cook it some more,” she said.
Without missing a beat, she removed cold poached salmon from the refrigerator. It had some fissures in it, but she instructed the team to fill those in with sauce and adorn with garnishes. She assured them it would look gorgeous.
Judy Gesicki, Veronica Espinoza and Pat Norton joined Clausen to make two slathering sauces as well as thinly slicing cucumbers and limes to use as garnish.
In the garage, three teams were hard at work. One was making cold avocado soup to be served in shot glasses, another making flatbread atop strips of thin lavash. Another was making beet-boosted hummus and red pepper dip to be served with toasted pita triangles.
Soup-makers Lupe Hemauer and Cheryl Carter took advice from Peggy Giavanti and added more coconut milk. Hummus-makers Kris Margetts and Angie Ocheltree pureed, sampled and seasoned. Ocheltree told me she has lost 107 pounds in the Weight Watchers program.
Mary Holzgang and her team assembled flatbreads at a station that was popular; everyone seemed to stop by to put their signature on these tasty appetizers.
Soon the flatbreads were out of the oven. Piping hot, the cheese had melted around the figs and melded with caramelized onion. The scent was divine.
Everyone sampled, then moved on to create more dishes: coconut shrimp, goat cheese with spicy peach sauce, some skewered chicken with satay sauce and a salad with fuyu persimmon, jicama and mango. Plus, a lemony dessert with angel food cake.
The dessert group looked puzzled. They didn’t have a recipe, just a tray with ingredients. Norton explained that the dish was so simple, no recipe was required. She told them she had seen Giada De Laurentiis do a similar dish on TV. But instead of making a lemon sponge cake from scratch, Giada-style, they were going to use store-bought angel food.
After they cut the cake into cubes, Norton added nonfat Greek yogurt, lemon zest and juice, and agave syrup to taste. Nothing was measured – she simply added, tasted and added more as needed. I sampled. It had an irresistible, tart, lemon pie kind of flavor.
Spooned into shot glasses, each dessert was garnished with a little whipped cream.
The team arranged the buffet on a huge table in her neighbor’s garage.
Standing behind the table, the group squeezed in for a photograph.
“We’re all so thin from Weight Watchers, that’s why we can fit behind this table,” Giavanti said with a giggle.
Soon their plates held the fruits of their labor, a glorious assortment of holiday fare.
Me? I was eating from a rubber spatula, cleaning the bowl that held the remnants of that lemony dessert.
No one saw. Probably wrong, but I couldn’t help it.
Recipe: Judith’s Poached Salmon
Recipe: Mustard Sauce
Recipe: Flatbread With Caramelized Onion, Fig and Fontina Cheese
Recipe: Goat Cheese With Spicy Peach Sauce
Recipe: Coconut Shrimp
Recipe: Roasted Red Pepper Dip
Recipe: Golden Hummus
Recipe: Skewered Chicken With Satay Sauce
