It’s nearing Memorial Day which had my soul wanting to do some grilling and this weekend, I did just that! I don’t claim to be a competitive bbq chef but I feel like I do a pretty decent job on the grill.
I work on finding ways to eat delicious food while continuing my weight loss journey and lifestyle change. So I’m constantly looking for ways to maintain flavor without ridiculous amounts of calories so I use Truvia, Splenda, Splenda Brown Sugar, etc… you’ll probably say that I shouldn’t use those because they’re not natural… Please refrain – white sugar, molasses, brown sugar, etc are all uber processed, unhealthy (especially if you have high blood sugar), highly caloric so I shed calories where I can. Calorie shedding spreads into my meats of choice, also, so a lot of times I’ll cook more lean proteins.
Typically when I grill I use dry rub and offer sauce on the side, I like this method the best because you can taste the rub, the meat, and smoke (when I use wood chips / charcoal). This weekend I made my dry rub with your basic ingredients cumin, chili powder, paprika, cayenne, ground black pepper, sweetener, and kosher salt but this time I thought I’d add ground bay leaf AND Sumac. Don’t sleep on sumac, it adds a very citric flavor and is very aromatic! You’re probably hoping that I’ll give you a recipe but I don’t measure my spices and I feel like you should experiment for your tastes because I might have more heat in mine than you prefer – so do some experimenting and taste as you add.
For this grilling session I grilled: vegetable kabobs, corn on the cob, chicken breast, beef short ribs, and pork spareribs. You’re probably thinking that’s a lot of food and yes you’re right it is but by doing all that cooking I was able to complete my meal prep (weight loss journey/lifestyle change) for the week.
Don’t let anyone tell you the best method or you need bigger, I used a Baby Q gas grill and got all of my grilling taken care of in 3 hours. I would have preferred something larger but you use what you have!
Allow your meat to absorb the seasonings for a minimum of 30 minutes, I was able to let mine rest for two hours.
I love grilling veggies with some olive oil, salt, and pepper!
You might think that this is burnt but that’s actually the sweetener darkening on the meat which I’m cool with because you’ll get some crunchy bits but for the chicken breast I’ll be removing the skin so all that flavor transfer is imperative!
Which leads me to how you can eat well while on a weight loss journey because as you’re aware neither short ribs nor spareribs are the healthiest meats. Lighten them up by trimming fat before and after cooking! When I eat this meat I’ll have a pile of skin, fat, bones, etc… on my plate because cutting those calories quickly add up considering 1 gram of fat is 9 calories! Avoiding caloric sweeteners, fat, skin, heavy sides like pasta/potato salad I’m losing unnecessary calories that won’t add anything to my meal. So load up on healthy vegetable sides and an appropriate serving of your grilled protein to celebrate the coming summer!
Misadventures of JH3 