Comfort Food

This dish comes together in a flash. If you are doing beef enchiladas, I recommend red sauce. If you are doing chicken, I recommend you go wild and use a green sauce.

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

At first you’d think chimichangas would be high carb. The good news is they have low carb tortillas at the grocery store that taste the same as the traditional. Look for the low carb versions.

This is a great crock pot recipe. Super simple but really tasty.

This is fast to make and is a wonderful comfort food addition to your recipes.

This stew will contain your meat and vegetable portion, serve with salad greens for a complete meal.

Talk about comfort food. This is the pure definition. Thankfully fat doesn’t make you fat so you can eat this at parties and not feel the guilt.

Orzo is a wonderful, tiny pasta. This is the most requested side dish recipe I get from dinner guests–but watch your portion size. Enjoy!

This is a simple chili. It’s a takeoff from an old Betty Crocker recipe. Can’t get much simpler than that!

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.

You’ll think you’re eating at an Italian Grandma’s house when you taste this.

This is a wonderfully moist meatloaf. It has a kick from the Cajun spices but not all that much and you can adjust according to taste. This transports well to work.

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

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.

This meal is good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. With a side salad it makes a nice brunch offering too!

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.

This is a great comfort food. Make a big pot and pack it up for lunches on future days for a nice hot meal on a cold day.

I thought – what better time to have a spicy chili than when I am in lockdown, practicing social distancing.

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!

When I was young I loved going to Chi Chi’s and ordering the chimichanga. Now that I know all the carbs from the tortilla it was wrapped in are a bad idea, I decided to make a lower carb casserole version.

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.

These crepes are very low carb and EASY to make. You can even make them ahead and store them in the refrigerator or freeze them. I made them at the same time I was working on my seafood and sauce for the stuffed crepes but if you’re not that coordinated in the kitchen, you can make the crepes first and just store them. You do have to keep a close eye on the crepes as they cook. Don’t get distracted. It’s much less stressful to make the crepes and then make the sauce. Both come together really fast so you’ll be out of the kitchen in a jiffy anyway.

Cooking does not have to be complicated. In this recipe Chef Josh shows us how to make a simple and delicious puree using butternut squash. Easy. Decadent. Delicious.

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.

This is a meaty chili with some veggies tossed in for crunch factor. Makes a satisfying lunch.

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. 

This tastes amazingly like gooey apple pie! This is delightful. Just like Grandma used to make.

I love to take the leftover turkey and transform it into something different. French comfort food. BIG YUM.

Dieter Jessica made this meal on one of her first days of ZReduction. It was so delicious she wanted to share it with everyone.

Pasta doesn’t have to be banned from ZLife. You just need to limit it and monitor how you use it. If you keep in mind that a FULL portion is a half cup cooked you’re on the right track. And just eat it on a special occasion.

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! 

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.

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. She taught me as a small girl to make apple crisp so I did it often. This also makes a wonderful little breakfast the next day.

Two things I love about living mid-South: fried green tomatoes, and tomato pie.

You can have your stroganoff and eat it too! Most stroganoff recipes are served over rice or a big pile of noodles. You don’t have to do that. You have other choices.

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.

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).

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

A rich and easy cream of mushroom soup.

This dish can be made a day ahead and reheated.

I found this recipe online. I didn’t have to do much to make it Zola. It tastes very much like a cheeseburger. The way to make it exciting though is to make sure you pile on the toppings that you like on your burger. You can feed the whole family with this and no one will miss the bun.

This chicken casserole will remind you of chilies Rellenos. If you like those you’ll be a big fan of this low-carb dish. Simple to put together and toss in the oven. And Voila! Dinner. I serve with slices of avocado on the side dusted with a bit of grated sea salt.

Tomato basil soup is very easy to make. It comes together in a flash. The addition of cooked chicken elevates it to a one bowl meal.

This is elegant comfort food. It’s sort of like the American version of the French dish called Coquille St. Jacque.

This will taste pretty darn official!

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.

One of my favorite Cajun meals is chicken mamou. Mamou in Creole is basically grandma. So this is “grandma('s) chicken.”

Most folks think of chicken wings as being a guy thing and even a sport fan thing but anyone can love this dip! I served it as a breakfast buffet item and it was hands down the dish that got the most comments and compliments. I think it was because it was so unexpected. The comments came from men and women alike but I must admit the guys were the ones who went gaga over this.

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.