Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my dad and I went to the 49ers Football game. We packed kiddy, but very nutritious lunch (carrots, spinach, hummus, turkey, apple, banana, and dark chocolate )
Tip* As you enter the Candlestick park, make sure you use a clear plastic bag to hold all your items, or else you have to go to a separate line to check your bags in and transfer everything into clear bags.

Conveniently, I bought everything at Target Grocery. 

This is one of my favorite soups from home. It is inspired by the Chayote, from Central America, and several dried Asia ingredients, like mushroom, shrimp, and lychee.

Time: 10 minute prep, 1 hour cook time
Ingredients:

• 1 whole skinless chicken with bones 
• 2 chayotes
• 6 dried mushrooms
• 1 teaspoon of dried lychee
• 1 teaspoon of dried shrimp

Steps:

1. Get a medium size pot and add just enough water to cover the chicken, then boil this
2. in the meantime, hydrate your dried chinese mushroom for 30 minutes in warm water
3. add all the ingredients and cook for 1 hour

After watching Gordan Ramsay's Best Restaurant on North African cuisine, it made me book a ticket to Morocco.

Just kidding. But it did get me to hunt for some Moroccan food nearby the city. The one dish that caught my eye was the lamb tagine. This dish is filled with exotic ingredients: coriander, saffron, turmeric, cumin, ginger , cinnamon, apricots and even more. All these ingredients are then slow cooked inside a cute looking tagine. The interesting feature about this tagine (clay pot) is its shape, which is pyramid like to allow condensation to drip back down to the bottom of the stew.

Anyways, I wanted to replicate this dish even without a tagine. So instead of taking an hour and a half to build up the exotic flavors from the stew, I bought a ready made packet of Saffron Moroccan Tagine Sauce. This packet already has a lot of sugar and flavor, so you will need to dilute the sauce and add more vegetables and seasonings.

After you try this, you would want to fly to Morocco ... Please take me with you.

Time: 40 minutes
Calories per serving: 300 (75 calories from the sauce, lamb 125 calories, carrots/onions/tofu 100 calories)
Serving size: 3-4 bowls of stew

Ingredients: Whole Foods and Trader Joe's

1. Whole Food's lamb shoulders( 2 pieces for $4) and lamb rack (1 piece for $5.00)
2. ginger (2 thin slices)
3. Saffron's Moroccan Tagine Sauce ($2.99)-half of the package
4. onion-diced up
5. tomatoes-wedges and hand squeezed
6. cinnamon-2 pinch
7. garlic powder-3 pinch
8. carrots-1cup
9. firm tofu- pan seared
10. black pepper-5 pinch
11. garlic-3 cloves minced

• Sear the Lamb: add some olive oil, then sear the lamb+garlic powder for 5 minutes (medium-rare), then place it aside
• Stew: use the rest of the lamb's oil to cook the ginger/onions/garlic (cook for about 5 minutes medium heat), then add half of the Saffron sauce packet+add 1 1/2cup of water (medium heat, 10 minutes), add the carrots and lamb (low heat for 10 minutes), add the pepper/cinnamon
• Tofu: I'm trying to avoid carbs, so I'm using tofu here to soak up the delicious stew. pan sear these on the side and place into the stew right when you serve

Who doesn’t love a delicious, grilled turkey burger with avocado? Better yet, less than 300 calories! Yes, this is happening.

I was so excited when this guy named Alvin told me about his 300 calorie turkey burger. I decided to modify the recipe a bit, not because of free will, but because I didn’t have it in my tiny apartment. I had to remove the egg whites and bread crumbs that help to hold the patty together. However, the George Foreman Grill was the perfect solution to make a solid lean patty.

Time: 40 minutes to prep/cook

Serving size: 6 burgers

Ingredients: Safeway and Trader Joe’s

1. George Foreman Grill
2. 99% lean ground turkey meat (1.6lb, bought it at Safeway Supermarket)
3. avocado-sliced
4. roma tomatoes-sliced
5. arugula
6. spinach
7. 100 Calorie Whole Wheat Buns
8. Onion – half an onion, minced
9. Garlic-3 cloves, mined
10. salt-2 pinch
11. black pepper-4 pinch

• Turkey Patty: mince the garlic and onions, then mix it with the ground turkey meat in a bowl, then add the salt and pepper, roll up a palm sized patty and flatten it, place onto the George Foreman (3-4minutes)
• Burger Materials: grill the burger bun inside the George Foreman (30 seconds), slice of the avocados and tomatoes, add some arugula and spinach