I recently watched a really great documentary about how eating right and exercising can save your life and improve the overall quality of it as well. It's called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and I think everyone on the planet needs to watch it. There's a problem here in America I like to call the Processed Food Epidemic, and it's killing people. Now, I understand that life is busy and we don't always have time to prepare a glorious, nutrient-packed meal, and it's so much easier and cheaper to pop a frozen burrito in the microwave. Trust me, I know, and I am a victim of the epidemic as well. But here's the question you have to ask yourself: Would you rather save 10 minutes right now and have something canned or boxed for dinner tonight, or spend those 10 minutes preparing something healthy and enjoying and extra 5 or 10 YEARS of life later on? Not to mention how much better you'll feel and look right now if you spend those 10 minutes cooking fresh food. Anyway, that's not the soapbox I meant to get on. I'm just excited when I feel good after eating a healthy lunch and want to share healthy vibes :)
Anyway so this movie was awesome. It chronicles a few months in the lives of two men who participate in a juice fast to lose weight, battle disease, and get healthy. It will blow you away. I just want to share two facts I learned from it.
1. The average American diet is 60% processed foods, 30% animal products, 5% white potato foods, and 5% fruits and vegetables. Does that not SHOCK you?? That's pretty much exactly backwards from what we should be eating. Fruits and vegetables should compose MOST of our diets, and they get shoved behind everything else, and are usually consumed as a thawed afterthought of one spoonful of frozen peas next to the lasagna. One of my new year's resolutions this year is to make my plate closer to half veggies. I do really well some days, and not so well others. It's something that, for me at least, takes lots of time and practice. But I know how necessary it is, so I want to do it. For me, my husband, and my kids, because I want to be with them in 30 years, alive and thriving in a healthy lifestyle.
2. You can't possibly eat the amount of vegetables you should in one sitting. In the movie the narrator showed a plate filled with the veggies he wanted to eat for lunch. This plate was overflowing with green goodness, and there was no way his body would let him eat it all. So instead of eating it, he juiced it. This is the beauty of juicing: You get all the vitamins and nutrients of the veggies without all the fiber and pulp, so your stomach can handle a lot more than otherwise. So it truly is a great way to get a lot of nutrients out of a lot of veggies, and a great way to lose weight.
I've always thought the best way to lose weight is to replace sweets and calorie-heavy foods (animal products, carbs, anything processed) with veggies and fruits, so this juicing thing makes sense to me. But here's why I smoothie instead.
Sugar is not necessarily bad for you. The way you GET sugar is what's bad. In nature, sugar comes from plants, such as sugar cane or fruit (or whatever Stevia is, I guess). Those plants have fiber, which is nature's way of telling your stomach to tell your brain to stop eating because you're full. Fruit has fiber, and so does sugar cane. But what you have sitting in a canister on your kitchen counter is not sugar cane, and neither is what they put in candy, chocolate, ice cream, etc. Food manufacturers have taken the fiber out of the sugar they use so that nothing will tell your stomach to tell your brain to stop eating because you're full. That's why we eat candy until we're sick - we never get full and it's SOOOO GOOOOOOD!! So here's the thing with juicing: I like fiber. It does good things for my body, not just telling me to stop eating because I'm full. And here's the other thing: I like crunchy food. If I were to have a tall glass of veggie juice for lunch, I'd probably follow it with toast, crackers, popcorn, or potato chips. Which would kind of defeat the purpose. So when I want to drink my veggies, I smoothie them instead of juicing them, hoping that the fiber will tell me I'm full.
This is still a work in progress. Even when I make a smoothie I still want something crunchy and end up eating more than I should. Which is why I have an on-again, off-again relationship with smoothies. To me they are a great way to use up plant material in your fridge that is still fine to eat but sure doesn't look like it is (soft apples, wilty spinach, wrinkly grapes, etc). Or, in the case of last week, to use up all the kale you bought because you thought you liked it and then found out you really just don't.
All that aside, here are some smoothies I enjoy. I usually try to have a healthy lunch with a smoothie on the side, just to pack in a few extra nutrients and hopefully tide me over until dinner so I can avoid snacking.
Carrot Milk
2 carrots
1 c milk
1 frozen banana
Blend and enjoy.
Spinach Smoothie
2-3 cups spinach
1 frozen banana
1 c water
1 c frozen berries
Blend and enjoy.
Kale Smoothie
1-2 cups kale
1/2 avocado
1 frozen banana
1 c water
Blend and enjoy
This is obviously not a complete list of every smoothie I make, but take it and invent your own. Also see my previous post about Green Juice, which is basically the second recipe with the berries swapped out for anything else. When making green smoothies you just need to remember one thing: add a banana and you won't taste the spinach. Berries do a great job at hiding it as well, but the banana is the key. It will also make the drink smoother. Another tip for bananas: Buy one bunch just for smoothies. Right when you get home from the store, peel them all and cut them in fourths. Put them in ziploc baggies and freeze them. This way you don't have to add ice, which gives me brainfreeze, and you always have smoothie fixin's on hand.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Butternut Squash Soup
Today I made my absolute favorite soup ever in the whole world. I love it for five reasons:
1) It’s made from my favorite squash: butternut
2) It’s entirely vegetarian (if you don’t count chicken broth)
3) It’s super easy to make
4) My family loves it, and it’s entirely vegetables
5) I feel like a gourmet chef when I put it all together and add a dollup of sour cream :)
My husband and I always eat at The Chef’s Table for our anniversary. I took him there for our second anniversary on a day when he was sick and feeling just awful. He wasn’t sure he’d be in the mood for the amazing steak he was going to order, but we decided we needed to go anyway. We got there and they mentioned soup, and Richard perked up. As it was November, their special soup of the day was butternut squash soup. Richard leapt at that idea. The soup was absolutely amazing, and perfect for my sick husband on a cold fall evening. And I vowed right then to figure out how to make that amazing soup.
Well, that hasn’t happened yet. But I did find a pretty good substitute! I searched All Recipes and found a good recipe for butternut squash soup. I’ve made it four or five times since then, and I think I’ve perfected it. So here it is: My version of that one recipe I found that one time.
Tip for people with no time and/or needy children: This soup calls for lots of chopped veggies. So chop them ahead of time. I did mine today while my kids napped, and it took no time at all. Then I just sat them on the counter (the veggies, not the kids) until I was ready to throw them into the soup. You could even do it the night before and put them in the fridge, or one time I was chopping peppers for that night’s dinner and chopped the peppers for dinner the next day at the same time and put those away.
Here's what I did:
1. Chop your veggies. You will need 1 good size (read: BIG) butternut squash, or two small ones
1 green apple (depending on how much squash you have. The ratio of squash to apple should be 3/1 once everything is chopped)
2 medium carrots
2 celery stalks
1 onion
Not necessarily in that order. But I do the squash first because it takes the longest.
2. Heat 2 T butter in a big soup pot
then throw in the onion, carrots, and celery. Sautee these together for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the squash and apples, along with 1 can (14.5 oz) of chicken broth and 1 can of water.
4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes, until the squash and carrots are soft.
5. Puree in a blender (or with a hand mixer if that’s how you roll) and then return to a clean pot.
*Caveat* I use a Blendtec, which has a soup setting that heats whatever you're blending. So instead of returning it to a pot so I can heat it up one more time before serving, I just soup it in the blender and put it in a serving bowl, where it stays warm.
6. Add about 1 cup of cream, along with pinches of salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cayenne.
7. Serve hot, with a dollup of sour cream.
Loveliness :)
Today I set aside a bowl of the pureed soup before adding the cream and spices, and Reuben LOVED it! I’m enjoying the way I’ve been cooking lately because he gets to eat a lot of what I do, and I’m sure he’s getting sick of the same old baby food jars all the time.
One day I want to try this soup without so many other veggies, so the butternut flavor will really come out. I tried a pumpkin soup last fall (terrible failure, but that’s another story) and I think that same pattern with butternut could be really yummy. I’ll let you know how it goes :)
1) It’s made from my favorite squash: butternut
2) It’s entirely vegetarian (if you don’t count chicken broth)
3) It’s super easy to make
4) My family loves it, and it’s entirely vegetables
5) I feel like a gourmet chef when I put it all together and add a dollup of sour cream :)
My husband and I always eat at The Chef’s Table for our anniversary. I took him there for our second anniversary on a day when he was sick and feeling just awful. He wasn’t sure he’d be in the mood for the amazing steak he was going to order, but we decided we needed to go anyway. We got there and they mentioned soup, and Richard perked up. As it was November, their special soup of the day was butternut squash soup. Richard leapt at that idea. The soup was absolutely amazing, and perfect for my sick husband on a cold fall evening. And I vowed right then to figure out how to make that amazing soup.
Well, that hasn’t happened yet. But I did find a pretty good substitute! I searched All Recipes and found a good recipe for butternut squash soup. I’ve made it four or five times since then, and I think I’ve perfected it. So here it is: My version of that one recipe I found that one time.
Tip for people with no time and/or needy children: This soup calls for lots of chopped veggies. So chop them ahead of time. I did mine today while my kids napped, and it took no time at all. Then I just sat them on the counter (the veggies, not the kids) until I was ready to throw them into the soup. You could even do it the night before and put them in the fridge, or one time I was chopping peppers for that night’s dinner and chopped the peppers for dinner the next day at the same time and put those away.
Here's what I did:
1. Chop your veggies. You will need 1 good size (read: BIG) butternut squash, or two small ones
1 green apple (depending on how much squash you have. The ratio of squash to apple should be 3/1 once everything is chopped)
2 medium carrots
2 celery stalks
1 onion
Not necessarily in that order. But I do the squash first because it takes the longest.
2. Heat 2 T butter in a big soup pot
then throw in the onion, carrots, and celery. Sautee these together for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the squash and apples, along with 1 can (14.5 oz) of chicken broth and 1 can of water.
4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes, until the squash and carrots are soft.
5. Puree in a blender (or with a hand mixer if that’s how you roll) and then return to a clean pot.
*Caveat* I use a Blendtec, which has a soup setting that heats whatever you're blending. So instead of returning it to a pot so I can heat it up one more time before serving, I just soup it in the blender and put it in a serving bowl, where it stays warm.
6. Add about 1 cup of cream, along with pinches of salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cayenne.
7. Serve hot, with a dollup of sour cream.
Loveliness :)
Today I set aside a bowl of the pureed soup before adding the cream and spices, and Reuben LOVED it! I’m enjoying the way I’ve been cooking lately because he gets to eat a lot of what I do, and I’m sure he’s getting sick of the same old baby food jars all the time.
One day I want to try this soup without so many other veggies, so the butternut flavor will really come out. I tried a pumpkin soup last fall (terrible failure, but that’s another story) and I think that same pattern with butternut could be really yummy. I’ll let you know how it goes :)
Kale for Lunch
Yesterday I had kale for lunch. An entire bunch of kale! It was good.
I started with kale chips, which were super yummy. Instead of salt, I used lemon pepper, and a little too much, as it turns out. I liked them, but they were way too strong for Richard. Rachel wouldn't even eat one, the nut. She's been going through a non-eating phase, though, where all she eats is grapes, so whatever. Anyway with the chips I decided that they are yummy, and if that's the only way you can get yourself to eat kale then go for it. But they weren't really for me. I really liked them, but I like raw, unseasoned veggies just fine, and they were a little too dressed for my taste.
Which brings me to my next experiment: kale smoothie. This. Was. Amazing. I am actually planning a trip today to buy bunches and bunches of kale so I can have this for lunch every day! Here's the honest truth, though: Kale kind of tastes like grass. And it REALLY smells like grass. I added a frozen banana to my smoothie to make it smoother and colder, and it added a nice flavor and a little sweetness as well. But if you don't like unseasoned veggies like I do, you might want to add some berries or sweetener to this. I get past the taste sometimes by thinking about what amazing things it's doing for my body, so here's the deal with kale and this smoothie:
Vitamins A, C, E, and K
More calcium than milk, and its phosphorous levels help the calcium be absorbed better
Beta-carotene
Great for your eyes
Prevents breast and lung cancer
Folate, iron, zinc, magnesium, and potassium - great for your skin!
And while we're at it, let's talk about avocados, which are also found in this smoothie:
Best fruit source of protein
Better fat source than butter (seriously, you need to try it in mashed sweet potatoes)
Vitamin E
Folate, fiber, and potassium - great for your skin again!
Protects eyes against cataracts and macular degeneration
And a cool fact I found out the other day - avocados don't ripen unless picked. You can leave a mature fruit on the tree for up to 6 months and it won't ripen or go bad! I think I need to grow an avocado tree!
Since I added a banana, let's talk about those too:
Can help with stomach distress, including digestive disturbances and constipation
Great source of energy
Can reduce the risk of stroke, relieve heartburn, prevent ulcers, and speed up recovery from diarrhea (ok, gross, but true)
One of the best fruit sources of potassium (which lowers blood pressure. Bet you didn't know that)
Check out all the minerals in bananas: sulfur, silicon, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, chromium, iron, flouride, manganese, selenium, and zinc!!
So basically this is the world's best smoothie. Also, since its liquid is water instead of milk, I was able to get Reuben to sample some, and he loved it!
I started with kale chips, which were super yummy. Instead of salt, I used lemon pepper, and a little too much, as it turns out. I liked them, but they were way too strong for Richard. Rachel wouldn't even eat one, the nut. She's been going through a non-eating phase, though, where all she eats is grapes, so whatever. Anyway with the chips I decided that they are yummy, and if that's the only way you can get yourself to eat kale then go for it. But they weren't really for me. I really liked them, but I like raw, unseasoned veggies just fine, and they were a little too dressed for my taste.
Which brings me to my next experiment: kale smoothie. This. Was. Amazing. I am actually planning a trip today to buy bunches and bunches of kale so I can have this for lunch every day! Here's the honest truth, though: Kale kind of tastes like grass. And it REALLY smells like grass. I added a frozen banana to my smoothie to make it smoother and colder, and it added a nice flavor and a little sweetness as well. But if you don't like unseasoned veggies like I do, you might want to add some berries or sweetener to this. I get past the taste sometimes by thinking about what amazing things it's doing for my body, so here's the deal with kale and this smoothie:
Vitamins A, C, E, and K
More calcium than milk, and its phosphorous levels help the calcium be absorbed better
Beta-carotene
Great for your eyes
Prevents breast and lung cancer
Folate, iron, zinc, magnesium, and potassium - great for your skin!
And while we're at it, let's talk about avocados, which are also found in this smoothie:
Best fruit source of protein
Better fat source than butter (seriously, you need to try it in mashed sweet potatoes)
Vitamin E
Folate, fiber, and potassium - great for your skin again!
Protects eyes against cataracts and macular degeneration
And a cool fact I found out the other day - avocados don't ripen unless picked. You can leave a mature fruit on the tree for up to 6 months and it won't ripen or go bad! I think I need to grow an avocado tree!
Since I added a banana, let's talk about those too:
Can help with stomach distress, including digestive disturbances and constipation
Great source of energy
Can reduce the risk of stroke, relieve heartburn, prevent ulcers, and speed up recovery from diarrhea (ok, gross, but true)
One of the best fruit sources of potassium (which lowers blood pressure. Bet you didn't know that)
Check out all the minerals in bananas: sulfur, silicon, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, chromium, iron, flouride, manganese, selenium, and zinc!!
So basically this is the world's best smoothie. Also, since its liquid is water instead of milk, I was able to get Reuben to sample some, and he loved it!
Monday, January 16, 2012
Cooked Spinach Salad
I used to think I was the kind of person who could eat the exact same thing for lunch every day. Read: I used to BE the kind of person who could eat the exact same thing for lunch every day. I don't know what happened, but lately I'm all about trying out new ways of cooking the same foods. Mostly spinach. I sure love spinach.
I was reading my nature foods book today, and you would not believe how good for you green leafy vegetables are. They have all the vitamins and nutrients you need for the day, they improve your skin and eyesight, fight all kinds of cancer, and improve your brain power. Eat more of them!
So today I got on Pinterest and followed a few links to take me to a dish I wanted to try out. It's perfect for today because a) it will use up the rest of my spinach before I go shopping tomorrow and b) it is FILLED with protein, and I had just done a butt-kicking 4-minute workout. Now, I looked up this recipe 2 minutes before I wanted to make it. So...I had to improvise a little, because shrimp and feta are not items I am constantly stocked with.
So here's what I did:
1. Heat oil in a pan while opening all the canned stuff and cutting up half an onion.
2. Cook 1 can of salmon in the hot pan, just until it's warmed through.
Now, I used salmon because I get it for free with WIC and have been trying to find ways to use it, but I'm sure chicken, bacon, or whatever else your clever mind can come up with would work just fine. Or just buy shrimp and do the recipe the way it's written ;)
3. Remove salmon from pan and start frying your onion.
I love onions.
Now, the recipe says to add garlic here, but I looked high and low and my handy squeezey garlic thing was nowhere to be seen (the pantry has gotten out of hand lately). I had some fresh garlic, but no time to mince it myself, so I decided to use garlic powder. A poor substitute, I know, but don't worry, I forgot to put it in anyway.
4. Add some balsamic vinegar to the onion (I skipped the chicken broth. Yuck.) and let it cook down for just a minute. I hit the jackpot today and found out my dad had bought pomegranate infused balsamic. It. Was. Amazing.
5. While your onions/vinegar are cooking, drain AND RINSE your can of beans. ALWAYS rinse your canned beans! You'll take of a lot of the sodium, and you'll actually decrease the, um, after-effects of the magical fruit.
6. Add the beans and spinach to the pan and let it all cook together until the spinach is nice and wilty.
You might employ a lid to trap the steam to speed this process up. A tip: If you're cooking spinach in a frying pan with lots of other foods and you're required to stir it, just don't bother. It's so light and big before it's cooked that you won't be able to stir it together with the other contents of the pan. Just lid it for a few minutes until it starts to wilt, then mix it up.
7. Return your salmon (or whatever) to the pan, and sprinkle generously with parmesan cheese. Give a couple stirs for good measure, then plate and enjoy.
Ok listen. This meal was heavenly. It's great if you're trying to eat more spinach but don't really like the stuff, because what you taste is the vinegar infusion that happens to the entire dish. It's also really heavy in protein, so it will keep you going until dinner.
Start to finish this took me maybe 15 minutes, and I was WAY pressed for time.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Green Stuff with Eggs
This is my favorite lunch. One of the best parts is Rachel likes it too, as long as the spinach isn't to strong. And since Rachel is 2, we call it Green Stuff with Eggs instead of a spinach omelet, which is all it is.
Just a quick plug for spinach: I freaking LOVE spinach!! When I was pregnant with Reuben, I ate spinach pretty much every day. When I had my GD test, the results came back showing that my iron levels were higher than that of an average woman BEFORE she gets pregnant. When you're pregnant, the fetus basically steals all the iron you would normally make for yourself, so you usually end up on iron supplements. Even your prenatal vitamins can't rebuild it enough all the time. But my spinach habit proved very helpful in this regard, and I never had to take a supplement during that pregnancy :) Spinach is also loaded with folate, making it a good pregnant-lady food for that reason as well. AND spinach helps fight cancers, including skin cancer, is a highly alkaline food, which can help balance all the acid we take in from animal products, and can even improve brain function! Eat it! Eat it often! I buy two bags of spinach a week and eat them basically by myself. Ok plug over. On to the details of my lunch.
Now, here's why I can't do a juice fast. Not that I feel the need to, but here's why I decided not to get a juicer. I just love protein. It makes me feel good. I usually put protein into whatever veggies I'm eating during the day, just to fill me up a little bit so I'm not tempted to snack later. Another thing I do is eat a HUGE lunch (as you can see) for the same reason. As a breastfeeding mom, I still eat whenever I get hungry, but I'm also trying to train my body to realize it doesn't need snacks all the time, especially with such huge lunches.
So today's huge lunch is heavy in beta-carotene, iron, and protein, and quite large. Good stuff. I'm still full just thinking about it. Here's what I did:
1. Cook up some spinach. I throw it in a frying pan and let it wilt down. Spinach has a ton of its own juice, so you don't really need to add water or oil or anything.
2. While the spinach is cooking, prep your eggs. I use 2 eggs to about 3 cups of spinach (but I'm a spinach addict. Use as much as you want.) and just a little bit of cheese (mozzarella, of course).
3. Remove the spinach and add some oil to the pan. I always always use olive oil, but to each his own. Once it's hot, cook yourself a mean omelet. For me, that meant getting my sister to cook it for me since I suck at omelets :) But she taught me well, so hopefully next time I can do it myself. (The last time I made this it was basically scrambled eggs with spinach on top.)
4. Add the spinach to the omelet before you fold it up all pretty, and voila! Green stuff and eggs.
I've been wanting to find a good veggie smoothie recipe, so today was attempt #2 at carrot milk. The first attempt went a little better, sadly to say. I am following a recipe that came with my parents' Blendtec, but I'll be altering it next time since I wasn't a huge fan of how it turned out. But here's what I did:
1. Cut 2 carrots in half. You should probably peel them first, but I didn't. I really don't mind the skin.
2. Pour 1 cup of milk into the blender, and stick the carrots in standing straight up. That's what the recipe said to do, so that's what I did.
3. Add 1/4 cup of ice cubes (whatever the heck that means. I did 4 or 5 ice cubes).
4. Blend and enjoy.
I had absolutely no faith in the blender at this point.
But it looks like it did a pretty good job! Super smooth! I think I'll pour it into a nice goblet and make it look all pretty.
Ok looks like it didn't do as well as I thought...a huge chunk of carrot was hiding in the blender and plopped into my pretty goblet.
Two! I guess it can handle one whole carrot, but not two. Next time I think I'll chop them smaller, whatever the recipe book says to do.
Yuck, what a mess lol.
Anyway here's my finished meal. It was really good, but like I said I need to alter the smoothie recipe. Next time I'll do more milk, more ice, and smaller carrot pieces and we'll see how that works.
Just a quick plug for spinach: I freaking LOVE spinach!! When I was pregnant with Reuben, I ate spinach pretty much every day. When I had my GD test, the results came back showing that my iron levels were higher than that of an average woman BEFORE she gets pregnant. When you're pregnant, the fetus basically steals all the iron you would normally make for yourself, so you usually end up on iron supplements. Even your prenatal vitamins can't rebuild it enough all the time. But my spinach habit proved very helpful in this regard, and I never had to take a supplement during that pregnancy :) Spinach is also loaded with folate, making it a good pregnant-lady food for that reason as well. AND spinach helps fight cancers, including skin cancer, is a highly alkaline food, which can help balance all the acid we take in from animal products, and can even improve brain function! Eat it! Eat it often! I buy two bags of spinach a week and eat them basically by myself. Ok plug over. On to the details of my lunch.
Now, here's why I can't do a juice fast. Not that I feel the need to, but here's why I decided not to get a juicer. I just love protein. It makes me feel good. I usually put protein into whatever veggies I'm eating during the day, just to fill me up a little bit so I'm not tempted to snack later. Another thing I do is eat a HUGE lunch (as you can see) for the same reason. As a breastfeeding mom, I still eat whenever I get hungry, but I'm also trying to train my body to realize it doesn't need snacks all the time, especially with such huge lunches.
So today's huge lunch is heavy in beta-carotene, iron, and protein, and quite large. Good stuff. I'm still full just thinking about it. Here's what I did:
1. Cook up some spinach. I throw it in a frying pan and let it wilt down. Spinach has a ton of its own juice, so you don't really need to add water or oil or anything.
2. While the spinach is cooking, prep your eggs. I use 2 eggs to about 3 cups of spinach (but I'm a spinach addict. Use as much as you want.) and just a little bit of cheese (mozzarella, of course).
3. Remove the spinach and add some oil to the pan. I always always use olive oil, but to each his own. Once it's hot, cook yourself a mean omelet. For me, that meant getting my sister to cook it for me since I suck at omelets :) But she taught me well, so hopefully next time I can do it myself. (The last time I made this it was basically scrambled eggs with spinach on top.)
4. Add the spinach to the omelet before you fold it up all pretty, and voila! Green stuff and eggs.
I've been wanting to find a good veggie smoothie recipe, so today was attempt #2 at carrot milk. The first attempt went a little better, sadly to say. I am following a recipe that came with my parents' Blendtec, but I'll be altering it next time since I wasn't a huge fan of how it turned out. But here's what I did:
1. Cut 2 carrots in half. You should probably peel them first, but I didn't. I really don't mind the skin.
2. Pour 1 cup of milk into the blender, and stick the carrots in standing straight up. That's what the recipe said to do, so that's what I did.
3. Add 1/4 cup of ice cubes (whatever the heck that means. I did 4 or 5 ice cubes).
4. Blend and enjoy.
I had absolutely no faith in the blender at this point.
But it looks like it did a pretty good job! Super smooth! I think I'll pour it into a nice goblet and make it look all pretty.
Ok looks like it didn't do as well as I thought...a huge chunk of carrot was hiding in the blender and plopped into my pretty goblet.
Two! I guess it can handle one whole carrot, but not two. Next time I think I'll chop them smaller, whatever the recipe book says to do.
Yuck, what a mess lol.
Anyway here's my finished meal. It was really good, but like I said I need to alter the smoothie recipe. Next time I'll do more milk, more ice, and smaller carrot pieces and we'll see how that works.
Friday = Fail Lunch
Ok, I admit it. I'm not perfect. Big shocker, right?
Yesterday I did my usual routine of looking through the fridge for leftover veggies and coming up with something to make out of them. I had cooked up a huge pot of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots the night before, and then everyone left before dinner so it didn't get eaten. I looked at the very full tupperware and instead of thinking "oh that would be yummy", I thought "I should make a smoothie out of that."
Not the best idea I ever had.
Turns out smoothies work better with fresh veggies, not overcooked frozen ones. Also, through reading some suggested smoothie recipes in a couple different books I found that grapes would probably be the best fruit pairing for the veggies I had, and we were out of grapes. So I did what I could with what I had, and it just never tasted right. I was hoping to make it tasty enough for everyone to enjoy, but as it was I enjoyed it just fine and drank the whole thing. I'm not going to share my recipe, though, as I deemed it a failure.
What I DID want to post about is the super easy dinner I made. It's not the healthiest, but it's super easy. This is my last-minute I-don't-want-to-cook-tonight meal, and my family loves it.
Bagel Pizzas
(My mom and I discussed this last night, and although the dish resembles Hawaiian pizza it's actually more like a sandwich, since it has mayo and mustard. But whatever, bagel pizza is more fun to say than bagel sandwich with pineapple and cheese.)
I made it slightly more healthy last night by using a real pineapple instead of canned slices. I did this because the pineapple at the store was on sale and it sounded good :)
What I did:
1. Separate bagels, and spread your choice of mayo and/or mustard on tops. (You could make this more healthy by using whole wheat bagels.)
2. Add a slice of deli ham to each bagel. I use the thicker ham slices that come in a rectangular package and cut each slice in half. Fits perfectly on a bagel this way. I think it's Bar S brand.
3. Add a pineapple slice on top of the ham on each bagel. (Now, if you're going the healthier route and decided on fresh pineapple, you might want to grill it first. Fresh pineapple is super tough, and it will make the pizza difficult to eat. Grilling it brings out all the juice and makes it much easier to eat. As an added note, if you leave the core in the pineapple and eat it along with the rest you are getting the most vitamin- and nutrient-packed part of the fruit.)
4. Add a couple of slices of mozzarella cheese (my mom insists on Swiss cheese, but blech) to the top of the pineapple on each bagel.
5. Broil on high until the cheese starts to brown and the bagels are toasted.
SOOOO easy, oder? I usually make two pizzas for each person in my family, and they all get eaten. The bad part is that they're so addicting, and it's a lot of bread. Like I said, not the healthiest meal, but super easy. It takes me about 30 mins to put together, and if you have helpers it would go even quicker.
Yesterday I did my usual routine of looking through the fridge for leftover veggies and coming up with something to make out of them. I had cooked up a huge pot of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots the night before, and then everyone left before dinner so it didn't get eaten. I looked at the very full tupperware and instead of thinking "oh that would be yummy", I thought "I should make a smoothie out of that."
Not the best idea I ever had.
Turns out smoothies work better with fresh veggies, not overcooked frozen ones. Also, through reading some suggested smoothie recipes in a couple different books I found that grapes would probably be the best fruit pairing for the veggies I had, and we were out of grapes. So I did what I could with what I had, and it just never tasted right. I was hoping to make it tasty enough for everyone to enjoy, but as it was I enjoyed it just fine and drank the whole thing. I'm not going to share my recipe, though, as I deemed it a failure.
What I DID want to post about is the super easy dinner I made. It's not the healthiest, but it's super easy. This is my last-minute I-don't-want-to-cook-tonight meal, and my family loves it.
Bagel Pizzas
(My mom and I discussed this last night, and although the dish resembles Hawaiian pizza it's actually more like a sandwich, since it has mayo and mustard. But whatever, bagel pizza is more fun to say than bagel sandwich with pineapple and cheese.)
I made it slightly more healthy last night by using a real pineapple instead of canned slices. I did this because the pineapple at the store was on sale and it sounded good :)
What I did:
1. Separate bagels, and spread your choice of mayo and/or mustard on tops. (You could make this more healthy by using whole wheat bagels.)
2. Add a slice of deli ham to each bagel. I use the thicker ham slices that come in a rectangular package and cut each slice in half. Fits perfectly on a bagel this way. I think it's Bar S brand.
3. Add a pineapple slice on top of the ham on each bagel. (Now, if you're going the healthier route and decided on fresh pineapple, you might want to grill it first. Fresh pineapple is super tough, and it will make the pizza difficult to eat. Grilling it brings out all the juice and makes it much easier to eat. As an added note, if you leave the core in the pineapple and eat it along with the rest you are getting the most vitamin- and nutrient-packed part of the fruit.)
4. Add a couple of slices of mozzarella cheese (my mom insists on Swiss cheese, but blech) to the top of the pineapple on each bagel.
5. Broil on high until the cheese starts to brown and the bagels are toasted.
SOOOO easy, oder? I usually make two pizzas for each person in my family, and they all get eaten. The bad part is that they're so addicting, and it's a lot of bread. Like I said, not the healthiest meal, but super easy. It takes me about 30 mins to put together, and if you have helpers it would go even quicker.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Wednesday: Sweet Potatoes with Avocados = Yumminess!
I mentioned earlier the book I've been reading about nature foods. In the sweet potato chapter it mentioned an idea I'd never thought of before: instead of adding butter or sour cream to mashed sweet potatoes, throw in an avocado. Genius! I love avocado. The author of the book talks about using avocados a lot in place of butter or other fats. Such a yummy fruit, and good for you (fats aside hehe). So here's what I did:
1. Wash potato. I decided not to peel it today after reading about all the good stuff in the skins, so I washed it really well.
2. Cut into 1 inch pieces and boil. I cut off some gross parts as well.
3. Drain and mash.
4. Add avocado and mash into potato.
That's it! It was so yummy! I did two small/medium sweet potatoes and one avocado.
I gave some to Rachel as well. She's been doing really well with fruits at lunch lately, but I'd love it if she would eat more veggies so I thought we'd try this out. She wasn't a huge fan, but she ate a good amount of it.
The best part of it was that it was all natural with no milk products, so Reuben got to share it with me. He loved it!
Keep in mind, if you're planning to feed this to a baby, that this is straight potato. When you feed a baby from a jar of baby food, it's diluted with water so he can eat a lot more. Reuben only ate about 5 or 6 bites of this before his tummy was all full.
1. Wash potato. I decided not to peel it today after reading about all the good stuff in the skins, so I washed it really well.
2. Cut into 1 inch pieces and boil. I cut off some gross parts as well.
3. Drain and mash.
4. Add avocado and mash into potato.
That's it! It was so yummy! I did two small/medium sweet potatoes and one avocado.
I gave some to Rachel as well. She's been doing really well with fruits at lunch lately, but I'd love it if she would eat more veggies so I thought we'd try this out. She wasn't a huge fan, but she ate a good amount of it.
The best part of it was that it was all natural with no milk products, so Reuben got to share it with me. He loved it!
Keep in mind, if you're planning to feed this to a baby, that this is straight potato. When you feed a baby from a jar of baby food, it's diluted with water so he can eat a lot more. Reuben only ate about 5 or 6 bites of this before his tummy was all full.
I think I may be turning into a health nut
It's true.
I just finished watching "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" and I think it's changed my life, just as it was intended to do :)
I've already committed, as one of my new year's habit swaps (haha that's what I'm going to call them now), to eat more veggies and less sugar, but now I think I'm going to go even more gung ho, and try to get my siblings on board as well. Heck, we could ALL stand to eat a little bit healthier.
I got to thinking just now that it would be a good idea to document my meals, in case anyone is looking for something quick and easy that's filled with goodness but can't find the time or creativity to come up with a good meal. And don't get me wrong, I'm not creative.
I'm reading a book every now and then about "Nature Foods", which are basically what Joe defines as "micronutrient" foods in the movie. It's your fruits, veggies, beans, seeds, and nuts, and they've got everything you need and then some. So what I've been doing is just reading through the author's 50 favorite nature foods and coming across one that makes me go "Oh! I should try that." She has some recipes, but so far I'm just preparing these foods the way I like them. I'll do recipes when I get around to it :)
I'll have to remember to take pictures of my food to include, which I haven't done the past few days, but next time I make these foods I'll post them again with pictures.
So here we go, my week of veggie lunches. We'll work on dinner occasionally, but for now I know I am in complete control of what I eat for lunch, because I'm the one who makes and eats it. I'm not quite ready to jump the bridge to feeding my teenage siblings raw veggie foods, though :)
Monday
My mom got sweet potatoes a while back, probably close to Thanksgiving, and I've been meaning to do something with them. Luckily they last a long time. So today I ate one. Pretty simply, too. Here's what I did:
1. Peel potato. I have since read that the skin is FULL of nutrients, so I'm going to skip this step next time.
2. Chop potato into 1 inch pieces.
3. Boil potato pieces until very soft (I intentionally boiled it longer than necessary because I knew I'd have to mash it with one hand since my baby was being especially needy).
4. Mash potato. I just used a potato masher, no beaters required.
5. Spoon in 2 large dollups of sour cream. My sister made fun of me for putting butter on Brussels sprouts because then they're not healthy anymore. Here's my argument for that, take it or leave it. The veggie itself still has all the vitamins and nutrients that you want, no matter what you add to it. So if you need butter or sour cream or salt to be able to stomach the veggie in the first place, I say go for it. You can wean yourself off of it later. I did this with spinach a few years back. I started by steaming it and adding lemon juice, but each day I added less lemon juice until I just liked the flavor of spinach by itself enough that I didn't need to add anything to it.
Another thing my mom got a while back was Brussels sprouts, and we worked on those all weekend. Here's what I did with mine on Monday:
1. Steam Brussels sprouts.
2. Add salt.
And they were SO GOOD!! I've found I love deep green vegetables for their flavor more than anything. Asparagus, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts all have a similar rich flavor, so if you like one, try the others and you might be surprised.
So that was my lunch. And it kept me full enough that I didn't get that late afternoon hankering for a snack. I did get hungry while I was cooking dinner, so I ate a few handfuls of cashews. Nothing like good protein to fill you up quickly.
Tuesday
Today I stared and stared and stared in the fridge. I usually make my lunches out of leftover veggies, and we just didn't have any. All the good stuff in the fridge is for dinners later this week, so I couldn't use almost anything. I did know that there was a pepper that needed to be eaten, and I found half a bag of spinach (yipee!) behind the eggs, so that was a starting place. I decided that since my baby was once again (as usual) very needy, I'd make fried rice and I could feed him while the rice cooked. Here's what I did:
1. Boil rice. I always use brown rice when I have the time, because it is a billion times better for you than white. It does take about an hour, though, so like I said, time. If you end up liking fried rice like I do it might be a good idea to cook up a lot of it and keep it in the fridge, as it's not necessary for it to be freshly cooked to make it into fried rice.
2. Chop pepper. I also saved about half of it to dip in hummus that I'll make later this week.
3. Chop green onions. I love onions.
4. Drain and rinse 1 can of black eyed peas, but only use about half. That's a lot of beans.
5. (start this step when the rice is about 10 mins from being done) Grill onions and peppers together until they start to look crispy. Then throw the spinach in there and stir it around while it wilts. Then add the beans and let them cook a little bit.
6. When the rice is done, add it to the pan.
7. I seasoned mine with lemon pepper, then added parmesan cheese after plating.
Ok so if those two days of veggie meals aren't easy peasy, I don't know what is, because I have two needy children so everything I do HAS to be easy :)
I just finished watching "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" and I think it's changed my life, just as it was intended to do :)
I've already committed, as one of my new year's habit swaps (haha that's what I'm going to call them now), to eat more veggies and less sugar, but now I think I'm going to go even more gung ho, and try to get my siblings on board as well. Heck, we could ALL stand to eat a little bit healthier.
I got to thinking just now that it would be a good idea to document my meals, in case anyone is looking for something quick and easy that's filled with goodness but can't find the time or creativity to come up with a good meal. And don't get me wrong, I'm not creative.
I'm reading a book every now and then about "Nature Foods", which are basically what Joe defines as "micronutrient" foods in the movie. It's your fruits, veggies, beans, seeds, and nuts, and they've got everything you need and then some. So what I've been doing is just reading through the author's 50 favorite nature foods and coming across one that makes me go "Oh! I should try that." She has some recipes, but so far I'm just preparing these foods the way I like them. I'll do recipes when I get around to it :)
I'll have to remember to take pictures of my food to include, which I haven't done the past few days, but next time I make these foods I'll post them again with pictures.
So here we go, my week of veggie lunches. We'll work on dinner occasionally, but for now I know I am in complete control of what I eat for lunch, because I'm the one who makes and eats it. I'm not quite ready to jump the bridge to feeding my teenage siblings raw veggie foods, though :)
Monday
My mom got sweet potatoes a while back, probably close to Thanksgiving, and I've been meaning to do something with them. Luckily they last a long time. So today I ate one. Pretty simply, too. Here's what I did:
1. Peel potato. I have since read that the skin is FULL of nutrients, so I'm going to skip this step next time.
2. Chop potato into 1 inch pieces.
3. Boil potato pieces until very soft (I intentionally boiled it longer than necessary because I knew I'd have to mash it with one hand since my baby was being especially needy).
4. Mash potato. I just used a potato masher, no beaters required.
5. Spoon in 2 large dollups of sour cream. My sister made fun of me for putting butter on Brussels sprouts because then they're not healthy anymore. Here's my argument for that, take it or leave it. The veggie itself still has all the vitamins and nutrients that you want, no matter what you add to it. So if you need butter or sour cream or salt to be able to stomach the veggie in the first place, I say go for it. You can wean yourself off of it later. I did this with spinach a few years back. I started by steaming it and adding lemon juice, but each day I added less lemon juice until I just liked the flavor of spinach by itself enough that I didn't need to add anything to it.
Another thing my mom got a while back was Brussels sprouts, and we worked on those all weekend. Here's what I did with mine on Monday:
1. Steam Brussels sprouts.
2. Add salt.
And they were SO GOOD!! I've found I love deep green vegetables for their flavor more than anything. Asparagus, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts all have a similar rich flavor, so if you like one, try the others and you might be surprised.
So that was my lunch. And it kept me full enough that I didn't get that late afternoon hankering for a snack. I did get hungry while I was cooking dinner, so I ate a few handfuls of cashews. Nothing like good protein to fill you up quickly.
Tuesday
Today I stared and stared and stared in the fridge. I usually make my lunches out of leftover veggies, and we just didn't have any. All the good stuff in the fridge is for dinners later this week, so I couldn't use almost anything. I did know that there was a pepper that needed to be eaten, and I found half a bag of spinach (yipee!) behind the eggs, so that was a starting place. I decided that since my baby was once again (as usual) very needy, I'd make fried rice and I could feed him while the rice cooked. Here's what I did:
1. Boil rice. I always use brown rice when I have the time, because it is a billion times better for you than white. It does take about an hour, though, so like I said, time. If you end up liking fried rice like I do it might be a good idea to cook up a lot of it and keep it in the fridge, as it's not necessary for it to be freshly cooked to make it into fried rice.
2. Chop pepper. I also saved about half of it to dip in hummus that I'll make later this week.
3. Chop green onions. I love onions.
4. Drain and rinse 1 can of black eyed peas, but only use about half. That's a lot of beans.
5. (start this step when the rice is about 10 mins from being done) Grill onions and peppers together until they start to look crispy. Then throw the spinach in there and stir it around while it wilts. Then add the beans and let them cook a little bit.
6. When the rice is done, add it to the pan.
7. I seasoned mine with lemon pepper, then added parmesan cheese after plating.
Ok so if those two days of veggie meals aren't easy peasy, I don't know what is, because I have two needy children so everything I do HAS to be easy :)
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