Polenta

Part of this getting back to healthy eating is trying new recipes. Many of my old standards don't meet all my current nutritional desires. I recently got a new cookbook from Costco, CookingLight Way to Cook Vegetarian. I LOVE this cookbook!  There are wonderful pictures and easy to follow instructions.

No pictures from today's meal, but it is a keeper. I'm now writing notations IN my cookbooks so I know what everyone thought of the meals. Tonight's dish was "Polenta with Spinach, Black Beans, and Goat Cheese". My husband loves polenta and spinach, but isn't too crazy about sun-dried tomatoes (and this dish had a good amount). The kids have never had polenta and I've never cooked it, so we were in for an adventure. First, the whole meal, including prep, took less than 30 mins. Great for a Sunday evening in our house. Second, it was easy to modify for my bland eaters. I just served them the polenta and then something else on the side. And third, it is pretty healthy. I prefer us to eat mostly non-meat proteins and this hit the spot (13.8 gm per serving).

Opinions:  My oldest and youngest tried the polenta without the other stuff. My youngest wasn't a fan, but she's feeling moody today and I wasn't pushing it. My oldest really liked it with a little salt. My middle girl liked it. She loved the sun-dried tomatoes and beans. My husband liked it a lot, but wished there was a little less of the tomatoes. I liked it just the way it was written.

Back on track! Meal planning and a new recipe.

I've been lazy and got WAY off track food-wise these past few weeks. I've been eating so many things that really I shouldn't be eating and it shows.

So, time to get back on track.

I have found I don't do really well with walking into the kitchen/house with just an hour or less to plan for dinner. I do MUCH better with a plan, even if it's a pretty simple one. In the past, when I do my planning, I will write it on a pad of paper and then try to keep track of it. This doesn't work so well for me.

I'm scattered at times. I have ADD tenancies that make it near impossible for me to keep track of that pad of paper and even remember to look at it. I know that sounds bad but it's true. I will forget to look for the paper until I'm hungry. Never fails I had to start making something earlier those days. So, I'm trying something new and I'm going to really try to stick to it!

I use Google Calendar. I have to put everywhere I need to be on this. If it's not there, I probably won't make it on time. I love the Google Calendar because I can access it anywhere. No more excuses. I access it on my phone and on any computer. Also my husband can access it from work or on his phone (no more of that "what are we doing tonight?" questioning). We have our calendars synced so I can see what he enters on his and he can see what I enter on mine. I look at it several times a day.

Which led to the idea of putting my meals on the calendar and an approximate meal time. Eventually I'll get good enough to put the cooking times on there for myself because prep always makes me later than I planned. I also can put a reminder on there for stuff I have to do in the morning/afternoon (crock pot meals). AND, my husband knows what is for dinner every night :) I put the meal in the title and the location of the recipe in the comments.

Which leads me to tonight's recipe. I recently bought the book Fresh & Fast Vegetarian  on ebay. It arrived damage and the seller offered me it for half price. Turns out, this is a great book - even more-so for under $5! Tonight's dinner was "Bulgur pilaf with roasted vegetables" (pg 112).  My husband loves grains, especially rice and the nuttier flavored hearty grains. I love roasted vegetables. It seemed like it was made for us. Basically it's oven roasted veggies (peppers, red onion, carrots, zucchini) and bulgur cooked with onion and raisins. It turned out to be a very yummy and filling meal.

Christmas Cake

Christmas eve is our more serious Christmas celebration day. We hang out together and attend church. We always end the day with a family dinner and cake to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. This started long ago when my oldest was little and asked why Jesus's birthday was the only important birthday we didn't celebrate with a mommy-cake. Very true.

This year I made a simple cake with a twist. The kids didn't help me make it this year, so I decided to make it a surprise and swirl it red and green inside. The red came out a little pink, but it was still fun.

I made white cake like I normally would. When I got to the step where I would pour it into the pan, I separated it into two bowls and colored the batter with food coloring (and left a little natural colored). Then poured the green into the pan and then the red - kind of making color splats. And into the oven it went.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Cook Book Review

I got a new book to try out last week and I've been happy with it. It's not flashy and doesn't have a lot of pictures (I do LOVE lots of pictures in my cookbooks so this is a minus for me), but the recipes are good and easy to make.

Quick-Fix Vegetarian by Robin Robertson, also author of Vegan Planet.

The title of the book says it's a vegetarian book, but all the recipes are vegan. That said, they are not unusual vegan recipes. Most of the recipes are the type that you can feed your non-vegan friends and have them like it. The book includes appetizers, soups, salads, skillet meals, pasta dishes, oven baked dishes, slow cooker meal, sauces and desserts.

I have made three of the recipes from this book so far and they were all great. The ingredients were easy to find and the directions easy to follow.

My husband and daughter LOVED the "Potato and Onion Pierogi with Broccoli and Walnuts".  It's one of their favorite dishes I've made this month. As I have said before, I have two other children who are not so adventurous with food. A great thing about this meal was that I was able to easily do something they would like too. The first step is to boil water and add the broccoli, without any spices. I was able to scoop out some of this broccoli when cooked a little for their veggie and then made some whole wheat couscous with some Earth Balance butter. It was a simple modification to make a slightly different meal for them.

Fajita Salad

I really want to eat more salads at home. While I'm great at making simple (boring) salads, I don't have much variety. When I go out, I love a good salad. So, why can I not do this at home? 

I wanted to be able to make a lower calorie/fat salad that has lots of flavor and something that will work for more than one meal.

Tonight was fajita salad. I used to make chicken fajitas all the time, but haven't made them in a long time. When I thought about it, I realized making them without meat would be simple. For the fajita mix, I thinly sliced one onion, a small zucchini, and a red and yellow bell pepper. Heated up a little coconut oil in the pan (probably could have skipped the oil. I used to use olive oil but wanted to try the coconut in this recipe) and then added the veggies. Once they softened, I added some Mexican spices, stirring frequently. I also cooked up some flavored black beans (canned black beans, rinsed, and a can of green chilies).

My two simple eating children, had bean and cheese burritos. My husband decided he didn't want salad, so served his fajitas and beans an a tortilla.  My husband likes a little cheese, so I added that to his tortilla.



For myself, I chopped up a head of romaine lettuce. Then added  the slightly cooled fajita mix and beans. Topped it with a handful of cherry tomatoes, cut up, and half an avocado. YUM! I didn't have any good dressing so I just ate it like this.



Today, the next day, I had a repeat meal. It was quite good. I did add a small handful of tortilla chips and a tablespoon of ranch dressing, which is not my favorite. It was very good and filling.

Lemon Basil Pasta

A few days ago I got a bunch of great vegan and vegetarian cookbooks from the library. Many were hold/requests so they took a little time to get to me.

I already have one Happy Herbivore book. This recipe was from Everyday Happy Herbivore (on the table 30 minutes or less).  The cookbook has some great and simple recipes.

This was the Lemon Basil Pasta. The recipe only has 5 ingredients: whole wheat spaghetti, cherry tomatoes, lemon juice, basil, and capers. I added asparagus. I think peas would have tasted good too.

Everyone loved this dish. For those who like cheese, a little of Parmesan would be great too. Two of my kids ate their noodles and veggies separate, but it was easy to do.

Yummy Summer Squash Pasta

This week was super busy but I was feeling the need to make something fresh tonight. I've been out and about and just eating sandwiches and simple stuff the past few days. Tonight I wanted a real dinner! Plus, I really needed some leftovers for tomorrow at work.

After a day at the beach with a long time friend (lunch- PBJ and some crackers) and then evening activities for the kids, I picked a dinner to try tonight and quickly squeezed a shopping trip to the local hfs.
Today I was at a city library and found some vegetarian/vegan/healthy cookbooks that looked good. I dropped my daughter off at her tumbling class and skimmed the books and found something I could make tonight.

Tonight's dinner was based on a recipe in "The Vegetarian 5- Ingredient Gourmet" -- Overall I like this book. Naturally, I can't just make something the way it's written if it's simple. I'm not a cook, so this doesn't always turn out for the best.

The recipe I started with was Spinach Fettuccine with Summer Squash. Like the cookbook says, it's just 5 ingredients: spinach fettuccine, olive oil, 2 medium yellow squashes, tomatoes, and Parmesan (copy Parm) cheese.

While getting things together, I had to make a little something to eat because the PBJ from 11:30 this morning was long gone (it was 7pm). So I whipped up a quick bit of what my husband and I call 'almost bruschetta'.  I have a gourmet friend who totally scoffed at this and it makes us laugh whenever we say we're having bruschetta now. All it really is chopped basil, garlic, tomatoes, and a touch of salt, pepper and very little olive oil served on pita crackers. My husband likes it with goat cheese too.

For dinner I found an interesting dry pasta that was calling my name. A dry pasta with spinach and chia. The texture was a little different and it cooked up really fast, but tasted pretty good.

While cooking the pasta, I chopped up and sauteed the yellow squash and some asparagus. Then I added some halved cherry tomatoes and tossed it with the past. I didn't use the oil because I didn't need it. The recipe did call for a little salt to taste, but was really good.

Last week I made a wonderful veggie chili. I love how colorful the peppers and onions look all cut up!

Breakfast foods

I really need to get some sewing reviews up or this will become a food review blog.

I've been experimenting with tofu this week. I'm actually getting decent at the breakfast foods now.

First up - Tofu Scramble. This was pretty good, but a little too much for me. After doing a little on-line search, I came up with a plan.
Got out my tofu and drained the liquid. Cut off a little bit and pressed it (put the rest in a glass lock container for another day). Cooked up some onions, garlic, carrots. Added the tofu and scrambled it up with the spatula. Added mushrooms and spinach and spices (turmeric, italian seasoning, and pepper) and then a little of my vegan pepper jack cheese. Cooked and chopped up some vegan sausage. Mixed it all together.

This was today's breakfast. A vegan "egg and sausage muffin".  Wheat English muffin with 'butter'. In the pan I cooked up 2 slices of tofu, seasoned with turmeric and pepper and one slice of the vegan sausage. Browned a little spinach and added a pinch of the vegan cheese. The cheese didn't melt well this time, but it added flavor. I think I need to cut the sausage thinner because it has a very strong flavor. Overall, I really liked this breakfast.

A quick and easy breakfast or lunch (I think I ate this for lunch the other day, not breakfast). Good bread, Earth Balance crunchy peanut butter with coconut oil, and sliced bananas. Yum!

Planning dinner

I used to be so good at planning out our meals, but, I admit, I've kind of slipped.

Time to get organized and start again.

With the weather being a little warmer, I don't want to use the oven if possible. Here in San Diego our hot "summer" weather is just starting. It'll be really warm in August and September.  Time to get out the crock pot.

I'd love for people to share with me any meals they love to make - especially the quick and easy and healthy ones.

This week's plan (so far):

Wed (today): Slow cooker Chicken and veggies - but I'm using 2 chicken breasts (mainly b/c I didn't defrost the whole chicken I have in the freezer and really these 2 breasts will be more than enough meat for us b/c we don't really eat that much meat).

Thursday: Fish with cous-cous and veggie (working out the finer details)

Friday: Slow-cooker Lasagna (let's hope it works)

Sat:  Grilled steak w/ potatoes and corn

Almost Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

Ok, they really aren't healthy, but they are a lot more healthy that most recipes and tons better than store-bought cookies. This is a mandatory apron recipe for me because I always seem to end up with either flour or batter on me.

This recipe is a work in progress. I keep decreasing the sugar and adding the healthy stuff. Here's my most recent version.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I put in more than this)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup ground wheat germ (or oat)
1/4 cup ground flax
1 cup all purpose flour
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups rolled oats

In large bowl, beat softened butter. Add sugars, baking powder & soda, and spices. Beat until mixed well.
Beat in Eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Beat in flours and wheat germ and flax. This is easier if you add them gradually.
Add the oats. I like to add half and mix with a wooden spoon and then add the rest and mix again.
*if you want chocolate, carob, or PB chips - add 1.5 cups now and mix well with wooden spoon.

Drop dough using a spoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10-12 mins, depending on your oven. Cool before sampling. These don't spread much, so spacing isn't as important as in some recipes.