A Calorie Counter Christmas

Well, it's that time of the year again. I'm not talking about the white, fluffy snow, or the shopping, or even the gift giving. I'm talking about the food. The turkey, the stuffing, the pie, the side dishes, the sweets, and of course the multiple meals. Christmas Eve you have dinner at your Grams, then Christmas Day you have to go to his or her parent's house and then you have to go to your parent's house. How many meals can one person consume in one day?! You know their going to force feed you! If you don't have the Christmas run around to different homes to deal with, you more than likely just took everything onto yourself and you are the cook.

You're on a diet and want to make a healthy meal, but Christmas is a time for splurging and indulging with friends and family! So what do you do?

This is the situation I want to address.

First of all you have the main course, which inevitably is the roast turkey. You really can't change the calorie content of the bird. About one serving, about 6 ounces is going to add up to about 350 calories. However, many do choose to have a cured ham, which would bounce that calorie count down to 300 calories per serving. Some people also like to make goose for the holiday; I would highly recommend staying away from goose, your looking at around 400 calories there. Since there is really little you can do about the main meat of the meal, you may want to choose to concentrate on the side dishes to keep the calories down, but yet give your guests something to talk about, in a good way of course.

Let's take a look at what's on the menu for stuffing. Your traditional bread stuffing grabs you by the love handles at 250 calories for one serving and cornbread stuffing is a hefty runner up at 240 calories for that one yummy serving. But what if you could make a stuffing that only had 110 calories and was out of this world!? Well you can. Mushroom Herb Stuffing is only 110 calories and easy to make.

Mushroom Herb Stuffing
Beat 2 eggs together, add 14 oz of chicken broth, one package of a vegetable flavored soup mix of your choice, add two tablespoons of finely chopped onion, add 1 ½ teaspoons poultry seasoning, one can of drained mushrooms, and nine cups of corn Chex. Mix them all up in a large bowl only until the corn Chex begins to soften and then cover it and back it for 50 minutes at 350 degrees. This amazing stuffing recipe will feed about 10 people.

A lot of people do not like mushrooms, and or like their stuffing to come straight from the bird. So in this case, you can make Cranberry Stuffing. Only 160 calories and bakes right in with the bird.

Cranberry Stuffing
Melt one cup of margarine in a large skillet and cook 1 ½ cups of chopped celery, ¾ cup finely chopped onion, 1 ½ teaspoons of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper until the mixture is tender. Stir in 4 ½ cups of soft bread crumbs and place it in a large bowl. Now you can add in another 4 ½ cups of soft bread crumbs, ½ cup of dried cranberries, one teaspoon of sage and thyme. Stuff the mix in your birdie and roast.

Mashed potatoes are always a must with a holiday dinner. My advice is to just keep them homemade. But as for any seasonings, such as salt pepper and butter, keep those on the table for your guests to add for their own taste and perfection. You can also consider doing this if you are making sweet potatoes as well.

How about the vegetables? You're pretty much safe with most vegetables being a pretty reasonable calorie amount. But watch out for sprouts, they rank up into the 40's. Your best bet would be sliced cucumbers soaked in vinegar is a mere 10 calories, sweet corn, broccoli, green beans, carrots, and peas rank below 30 calories. If you're going to make a cheese sauce for the broccoli, keep it separate and let your guests add on the calories! And of course the cranberry sauce is something you can't forget, look for light jellied cranberry sauce; it tastes the same as the regular but less calories!

Now here is the tricky part... the desserts. Pumpkin Pie is a classic, and store bought your looking at around 250 to 300 calories per slice. So do your waist a favor and bake your own! Baking your own will give you the advantage of so you know what and how much is going into this pie! You could always forget the pie and incorporate the pumpkin theme in some pumpkin cookies at only 130 calories per serving, which would be about 3 cookies.

Pumpkin Cookies
All you would need is to mix one box of yellow cake mix; one can of pumpkin, ¼ cup of butter, 2 ½ teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice and ½ cup of raisins. Drop dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 14 minutes and cool for about a half hour. Top with your favorite choice frosting, preferably vanilla, and serve!

For any other cookies you may want to make and serve, your standard sugar cookie is only 54 calories per cookie, and peanut brittle is in the 50's as well.

When getting into the holiday season, you don't have to become what you eat. Remember to eat in moderation. If you have no control over what is being served, eat lightly. Instead of 3 pieces of turkey, take 1 ½. Instead of adding whipped cream on that pumpkin pie, do without. Pick the smallest of the cookies and cakes, and remember if you're going to be eating in more than one place, eat in moderation.

By eating in moderation, you make all family members happy that you ate some of their food and you minimized the calorie intake. Also, if it's not too cold, snowy, icy, or rainy and you're within a 15 minute walking distance from the next family member... take a walk to the next place to visit!

Another suggestion would be not to let the curse of the turkey dinner put you out for the count. Stay away from the couch! Sleeping is not an option! Work off some of those calories by helping the person who cooked their tail off clean up, or maybe play with the kids! Stay active; don't let it get you into that turkey coma!

All and all, I hope this gave you a few ideas to have fun, eat right, and keep up your eating right throughout this jolly holiday season.

Merry Christmas!