Comfort Food

Light and dreamy. If you like pumpkin you’ll love this smooth and easy dessert.

Dieter Claire invented this recipe by modifying the fruit parfait recipe and adding extra frozen strawberries. She says, "it's as close to ice cream as you can get." We agree.

This is a remake of Beef Bourguignon. Who can resist this traditional French dish? So lush-tasting. It just about melts in your mouth.

It may not feel like it here in Chicago, but spring and asparagus season are just around the corner. Gear up with this flavorful soup.

You know how you can eat mac and cheese and not even use your teeth? This had the same result. BIG YUM!

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.

For all you cabbage lovers out there, this recipe is a ZReduction take on a German classic. While you can whip this dish up in about 30 minutes, red cabbage tastes sweeter the longer you cook it -- so if you are on ZReduction and like your cabbage a little sweeter, cook it low and slow until the flavors mellow and meld to your liking.

This recipe is for all the vegetarians out there. Thank you dieter Nancy for this photo. For you non-vegetarians this makes a great side dish to go along with a grilled meat. We had this last night with grilled Andouille sausage and had a lovely meal.

A unique way to stuff a chicken! From our dieting friend from Canada…Loretta.

Serve in soup bowls with a protein of choice. In Z2 this is your veggie portion. You can have plain salad greens on the side if you need more. It’s very filling though.

Just like the one your mom made, only healthier. Everyone loves the green bean casserole. Here I'll show you one one that doesn't take much longer to make and it’s real food, not processed!

This dish tastes very much like Shrimp Scampi that you might order in an Italian restaurant. The addition of cheese takes it over the top in terms of BIG YUM.

Talk about easy to make. This soup is done in a flash. If you’re like me you’ll make a triple batch. You can freeze the portions and just add shrimp bits when you go to serve it.

As the weather gets colder and the nights get longer this makes a wonderful soup. Or if you get a cold while on Plan Z this might be just the ticket!

This is a great Zola to Go! dish, perfect for those cold days for lunch.

A traditional Italian meal made the Plan Z way. My husband declared this one of his favorite meals of the year.

Tastes very much like the traditional version but this one doesn’t include higher carbohydrate vegetables like carrots and potatoes. Still quite delightful, though. Brings back memories of grandma.

This dish is easy to put together. The spouse or the kids can help chop and it comes together fast. You can be doing other things while your dinner bakes in the oven. Makes great leftovers, too.

This dish can be made with chicken or is a perfect way to use up leftover turkey from the holidays.

In addition to being crunchy, satisfying and delicious, pumpkin seeds are a nutritious snack. You can buy shelled pumpkin seeds in the grocery store (also know as pepitas), but when pumpkin season rolls around, you can buy a fresh pumpkin, scrape out the seeds, and toast the whole seeds yourself. YUM! 

Serve this at your next family event instead of potatoes and you’ll save 30% of the carbs.

Can be a vegetarian entrée or a side dish. SUPER Yummy because as the squash bakes it becomes sweet.

Pierre Franey was a cooking hero of mine. He was the original “60 Minute Gourmet.” I adapted this recipe from one of his and turned it into a wonderful diet meal.

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

This is a “Whopper” of a meatloaf, designed to taste like the famous burger. I hope you enjoy.

I came up with this recipe at the end of summer. I took what I call an “inspiration” recipe and Zolified it so we can enjoy it. It’s really tasty. 

Our Plan Z “cafeteria” smelled just like Grandma’s house today. This beef over noodles recipe is a hit. Serve this when you have family around at holidays or other times when there’s a crowd.

When you get into the second portion of ZReboot you can start to experiment with a little more carbohydrates. Try this at week 4 – 6 of ZReboot and see how you do.

Amatriciana is an Italian dish. Simple and traditional. I am calling this American Amatriciana because the Italian version is made with guanciale or pancetta. I make mine with good ole’ American bacon. This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes. I hope you love it too.

Chris’s cousins sent us a HUGE box of fruit as his get well wish. There are only two of us, so in order to use the fruit I have had to get creative! Oh, my, these are yummy!

This casserole tastes just like a zippy chicken enchilada without the major carbohydrate intake.

A very quick and simple family dinner.

This award-winning chili recipe won best Verde Chili by the International Chili Society in 2018. "Texas Chuck," the creator of this awesome recipe, made this chili using Mild Bills Spices (in case you're trying to get his authentic flavor).

There’s something about the potential of smelling apples baking with cinnamon and nutmeg that conjures up fond memories of my mother in the kitchen.

Celebrity Chef Jernard Wells knows soul food. While a lot of his food is quite decadent, he also loves greens, and shared his wonderful southern greens recipe in a local interview. What's great about it is it can easily be modified to fit ZReboot. His original recipe calls for sugar, but by replacing the sugar with your favorite sugar substitute, you can still enjoy this delicious recipe. 

With this recipe, I’ve included about 25% of the pasta that would be in most similar recipes. That’s a big secret. Just cut it back. You won’t miss it. This casserole focuses on the veggies, the protein and the sauce.

I adapted this dish from one I saw in a recipe site. I had to change it quite a bit to “Zola-fy” it but it was just so decadent and creamy I had to share.

With the winter months peeking over our shoulder this hearty soup will shake off the chill while the leaves are still falling. ZTeam coach Grace made this at home and enjoyed it so much she wanted to share it with the Plan Z community!

"My mom wasn’t a cook which I think I’ve told you, so when she made pork chops she would put them in a dish, pour French onion soup (Campbell’s from a can) over them and serve it with applesauce.

When you need some serious cold weather comfort food, ratatouille hits the spot. This shortcut ratatouille-inspired recipe was submitted by dieter Angela. She Zolafied the original recipe and created a delicious ZReduction veggie sauté that can be made in less than half the time of a traditional ratatouille.

We have to thank Dieter Claire for inventing this recipe. She modified the fruit parfait recipe and developed a strawberry "ice cream" recipe and this recipe with frozen mandarin oranges. She says, “it’s like an orange creamsicle.” YUM!

You have a hankerin’ for Fried Chicken? This will fit the bill.

This will taste pretty darn official!

These meatballs are my take on an authentic meatball recipe from New York city. These actually have a cheesy element to them that make them super yummy. BIG YUM!

The inside of this pie bake tastes just like Midwest comfort food. You won't even notice the potatoes are missing. It has just enough carrots to remind you how sweet they are. Same for the peas. The onion, celery and the mushrooms give it the depth of flavor you'll remember from childhood. The topping isn't your average pie crust. This one is low carb. So it's not like a biscuit either. I'm still trying to perfect low carb biscuits, so this is sort of a cross-breed.

I don’t eat potatoes very often but these are worth the splurge a few times a year. The yellow potatoes they are made from in my recipe are lower in carbohydrates than a Russet potato, so that’s a bonus, too.

Made this tonight and was very happy with it – it would count as your vegetable and your meat although you could definitely add a green salad. I found it to be very filling.

I’m Irish, so beef stew was a staple in our family. Trouble is there are so many carbs in most beef stew recipes. So with this recipe I have adjusted it to keep the carbs lower and introduce some other veggies that are lower carb to the mix.

I have designed several chili recipes for Plan Z. This is one of those that is very straightforward and simple. It doesn’t even have a lot of ingredients.

This soup is super easy to make.  If you are a fan of southern food this will hit the spot.

Talk about easy to make. This dish is done in a flash. If you’re like me, you’ll make a triple batch of the tomato base. You can freeze the portions.