Buffalo Ragu with Roasted Raddichio

Legs needed a break, so I did Wii boxing for about an hour today. I got a pair of weighted gloves, and it is pretty amazing how much of a sweat (and rage) you work up punching those animated palookas. Matt makes me especially angry - why did they make him so hard to beat?

Anyway, decided to make some pasta tonight. The problem with pasta is that it is so easy to overeat it, and make yourself way too big of portions of it. Before you know it, you're eating 1500 calories for dinner. By the way, the next person that says "oh, Italian Place X is awesome - they have the biggest bowls of pasta I've ever seen", look out, because I'm punching you. That place is not awesome. That place overprices incredibly cheap and lousy food that isn't homemade and is barely edible. And having a giant bowl of slop is, well, a giant bowl of slop. You need to do better than try to make me fat in order to impress me - I'm not in college anymore. Give me a reasonable portion of someone's grandmother's recipe, or something inspired. Not a pile of mushy pasta in V8 juice.

Tonight's dinner:

Sauce:
1 pound ground buffalo meat (800 calories)
1 tbsp olive oil (120 calories)
2 cups chopped carrots (100 calories)
2 cups chopped red onion (50 calories)
1 26-oz can diced San Marzano tomatoes (150 calories)
1 cup skim milk (80 calories)
tablespoon garlic
pinch crushed red pepper (optional)
splash balsamic vinegar
healthy grate of whole nutmeg
two basil leaves
pinch Italian parsley

brown buffalo in half the olive oil and remove from pan. Add the rest of the oil and the carrots and onion to the pan (you shouldn't need to drain the fat as the meat is incredibly lean, but if you need to, do it), and sautee a bit until translucent. Deglace the pan with balsamic vinegar while browning to prevent flavor from buffalo from burning. Add the garlic toward the end, and then add the tomatoes and stir, deglacing with the liquid from the tomatoes. Add crushed red pepper and nutmeg. Allow to simmer covered on low until carrots and onions are soft, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Finish with milk, add the buffalo back to the pan, and stir in chopped herbs.

Note this makes four servings, so make sure it serves four. 425 calories per serving. Actually, it could serve 6-8, but eating the little chunks of carrots and bison are really tasty, so you'll want to oversauce. Add to one serving of pasta (200 additional calories). Again, one serving of pasta is 1/8 of a box, so don't overdo it.

Side: Roasted radicchio

In discussing my quest with a friend that helps people fight their weight and get healthy for a living (among other things), I was recently sent this amazing recipe. I substituted radicchio in my dinner tonight for a slightly different flavor (and since I didn't have any romaine on hand):

Take a head of romaine, keep the core in and slice it long way in half. Take the halves and put them on a cookie sheet with evoo, cut side up, spray halves with olive oil mister. Put a little bit of black pepper only. Roast in a preheated oven 425 for 12 minutes, bottom rack.

While it is roasting make a mixture of grated parm reggianno, grate it chunky not a fine grate, like 1/2 cup, to that add the grated zest from one lemon (don't zest in strips, grate it fine) then add a handful of fresh chopped Italian flat leaf parsley. Mix that together with your fingers. When the romaine comes out of the oven sprinkle the mixture on top and let it just melt into the hot romaine...top with a high-end evoo, if you so choose.

I figure a half a head of radicchio with a touch of oil and cheese is about 75 calories, bringing the whole dinner to around 700 calories.