Food Lately

Long time, no post! August was INSANE for me but I'm hoping the rest of the year is a little less crazy, which means I can post a little more frequent.

Here are some meals we've been enjoying lately..

Taco Salad with Ground Chicken - this is one of our staples, and this time I added black beans to it. It was so good! There isn't really a "recipe" for this, we just season up ground chicken with some cumin and chili powder and mix it up with lettuce, 2% cheddar cheese and salsa (and black beans). Easy!





This may look like a really random picture (below) but I wanted to document it so I would remember. It's canned green beans simmering in low sodium beef broth and garlic. The result tastes AMAZING... it tastes just like the green beans you get at a cafeteria but without any bacon or butter or bad stuff in it.


Matt discovered this one. It's a healthy take on Egg Salad Sandwiches. He combines 2 egg whites (I like to have one yolk in mine) with 0% cottage cheese, 2% cheddar cheese, yellow mustard and a little bit of sriracha for mine. DELICIOUS!




This is one of my favorite simple meals.. salmon and broccoli. Matt seasons and cooks it for me (notice a trend? He's definitely the chef in the family!) and it's SO AMAZING. I ask for it all the time.

Recently we had a BBQ with friends, and we had a lot of pasta salad left over. (The pasta salad is just Italian dressing, veggies and whole wheat pasta). For the leftovers, Matt grilled some shrimp for me, and I had it on top of the pasta salad with a little bit of BBQ sauce. It was delicious!

Matt made this one (below) for me for breakfast while on vacation. It's scrambled egg whites with white Vermont cheddar cheese. It was so good, I had to take a picture ;)

Food Lately

Here are some really good meals we have had lately!!

Adobo Pork Tacos - Matt made these in the crock pot and we both about died they were sooooooo good. The recipe had jalapaneos, adobo seasoning and chipotle peppers. He didn't write it down and I said he better remember it!! And in case he doesn't remember, he used this recipe as a guide. We froze the leftovers to make enchiladas sometime. 

 

Below is quinoa, black beans and salsa with 2% cheddar cheese melted on top. A really good meal when you don't want to go to the store!

 

Matt made homemade ravioli with wheat pasta dough and chicken/slim milk ricotta. He also made homemade "light" pesto from our basil in the backyard and very little oil. It was fantastic!! I'm a lucky girl. 

 

Here is the recipe we used for the Pesto. It was so tasty, you really don't need all that oil that is normally in it. Taken from here.

Lightened Homemade Pesto

	2 Tbsp pine nuts
	2 cup(s) basil, leaves, fresh
	1/2 cup(s) reduced-sodium chicken broth
	1/4 cup(s) grated Parmesan cheese
	1 Tbsp olive oil
	2 clove(s) (medium) garlic clove(s), peeled
	1/2 tsp table salt

Instructions

• Place pine nuts in a small skillet and set pan over medium heat. Cook until nuts are golden, shaking pan frequently to prevent burning, about 3 minutes. Transfer nuts to a plate to cool.
  
• In a blender or food processor, combine nuts, basil, broth, cheese, oil, garlic and salt; process until smooth and thick. Yields about 1/4 cup per serving. 

And last but not least, homemade turkey meatballs and roasted broccoli. You don't even need to pasta, it's so good.

Healthy Asian Food & A Somewhat Healthy Dessert

I was craving some Asian food Saturday night (sushi to be exact), but we wanted to have dinner at home so I found this recipe and Matt made it for me! It was DELICIOUS!!

Soy-Grilled Mahi Mahi recipe with Korean Dipping Sauce
 
Ingredients:
Mahi Mahi (there was only a frozen piece available when Matt went but it wasn't bad! Matt did the same recipe with a pork chop because he doesn't eat seafood)

Sauce/Marinade Ingredients:
1/4 cup soy sauce (we use Gluten Free/Low Sodium soy sauce)
1 1/2 T Rice vinegar
1 T sesame oil
2 T Splenda or brown sugar (We just did 1 T of brown sugar to cut down on the sweetness/sugar)
1 green onion, thinly sliced (We forgot to buy this, but we'll definitely add it next time)
1 tsp. garlic puree (we just used regular chopped garlic
pinch of cayenne pepper or a dash of hot sauce (I put Sriracha in mine, yum!)

Instructions:

Combine soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, Splenda or brown sugar, green onion, garlic puree and cayenne or hot sauce in small bowl. Put half of mixture into a small ziploc bag with the two pieces of fish and marinate at room temperature for 10-15 minutes.

While fish marinates, spray grill with non-stick spray or wipe with olive oil, then preheat grill to medium-high (you can only hold your hand there 2-3 seconds.)

Put fish on grill with top side down and grill 2-3 minutes (until you can start to see grill marks, I have to lift it up to see.) Rotate 45 degrees on same side and cook 2-3 minutes more to get criss-cross marks. Turn fish over and cook about 3-4 minutes more. Total cooking time will not be more than 8-10 minutes, The fish should feel barely firm when it's done; don't overcook. Serve hot, with dipping sauce on the side.

As you can see, we ate this with brown rice and broccoli that was marinated in the same sauce and grilled.

I also made the yummiest dessert tonight:



What you see above is two spoonfuls of 0% Plain (unsweetened) Fage Greek Yogurt mixed with some honey and cinnamon. Then I added some fresh raspberries and a sliced banana and drizzed with more honey (I know honey isn't "healthy" but it's nature's most natural sugar so I don't feel TOO guilty!)

This dessert was DELICIOUS and I'll definitely make it again when I have another sweet tooth (which is all the time!)

Recent Favorites

It's been so hot and humid here in NC, I wanted something light for dinner on Sunday night. Matt grilled some salmon for me and I put it on top of a spinach salad with a drizzle of my favorite Goddess dressing and some feta cheese. It was a simple but DELICIOUS dinner! (the salmon was seasoned with garlic salt and Old Bay). One thing I've noticed that makes a huge difference is buying the more expensive wild salmon versus farm raised. It's completely worth the couple extra dollars!

I also have added raisins to my granola on the go which is super yummy.

And last but not least, a recent lunch of rice crackers, hummus, green peppers and salsa. I cannot get enough of this fresh salsa!

Also, last night was a milestone for me. I ran straight for 20 minutes (and to top it off, it was 90 degrees and 50% humidity!)

New Favorite Cereal

Our friends (who all have kids) think it's crazy that we don't keep milk in the house.. we never drink it, but we do eat a TON of yogurt!

Even though we don't have milk, we bought this new (to us) Kashi cereal:

I love it! I added it to my granola and it was a really good breakfast on the go:

I also combined it with some yogurt and just a little drizzle of honey. It was really good, but next time I'll use plain greek yogurt to cut down on the sweetness.




Some other things I've enjoyed lately... a turkey & avocado wrap in a spinach tortilla (purchased at a local deli)



Tuesday night we had tacos (fish tacos for me, chicken for Matt) and last night I omitted the corn tortillas and just heated up my left over grilled tilapia with my black beans. I then added some salsa and 2% cheese, and it was really good!! I'll definitely have to make this again.

Yes, I'm Alive!

Yes, I'm alive, and still very much eating healthy!!

I knew this summer was going to be very busy with both work and life, but I really hadn't anticipated how busy I would be! I simply started to run out of time to post my meals every day.

Also, I realized as I've been eating healthy now for 2 months, I eat a lot of the same things. You could scroll through my iPhone and see dozens of pictures of apples!

So I decided to approach this little side blog a bit differently and just post "note worthy" meals... ones that I want to remember for the future (especially when I am trying to figure out what to have for dinner or lunch!)

Here are a couple meals I've had recently..

This meal consisted of flank steak, broccoli, quinoa, green onions and some gluten free soy sauce. It was great for a Chinese Food fix!

This is an example of a "we have nothing to eat and don't want to go to the grocery store" type of dinner. We cooked up an egg and cheese omlette with one whole egg and two egg whites and 2% cheese. I also had some whole wheat toast with some homemade jam that my husband's grandparents gave us.

I used to HATE salads but last night I was actually craving one, a chopped cobb salad to be exact. This salad has romaine lettuce, turkey, one hardboiled egg, chopped tomatoes, cucumber and feta cheese.

Back during my unhealthy days, I would have nachos for lunch ALL THE TIME. This is my healthy version of nachos. These are nut crackers (will explain below) with a 100 cal pack of guac, salsa and a string cheese. So much healthier for me than loading on probably a cup of cheese on top of tortilla chips!

Here are some products that I couldn't live without now that we have this healthy lifestyle:

Normally when you see "Low Fat", "Light", "100 Cal Pack" or anything like that, it's LOADED with chemicals and is NOT good! However, here are some exceptions - Annie's Naturals Lite Goddess dressing is SO yummy and still completely all natural even though it's "lite". The 100 calorie packs of guac is also completely natural, they just packaged a 100 calorie portion size of their regular guac. If you see something is "low fat" or "light", always flip the container around and look at the ingredients. If you see chemicals, put it down. If you still see all natural ingredients, it's okay. Here are the ingredient lists for the Annie's dressing and guac:







Also, I just recently tried Nut Thins and they are awesome! They are gluten free which is awesome.




Now that we eat healthy, we eat SO much fruit! We keep so much of it on hand lately, I had to put a second fruit bowl out!





The KIND granola is still my favorite.. it's soo good and still very healthy. I'm also a huge fan of the Target brand organic fruit strips, they are always great to have around in case I need a little sweetness. They taste like candy but are made only from fruit and are only 45 calories.

I have to admit most of these great foods I found via my bff and "coach" Erin - she's the one who started me on this diet change. She lives in Denver with lots of health nut hippies so she always knows the best and healthiest things out there. I had no idea Nut Thins even existed until she told me about them, and they were on the very bottom shelf at our local grocery store, so I would have never seen them!

6.6.12

Tonight for dinner we had one of my faves.. Pizza with whole wheat dough, cheese and salami. No sauce, super simple.. Sooo good!!