Part 2: Why We are Trying AGAIN!

 While writing this blog to help my husband's cholesterol,  I was struggling too.  Fatigue, stomach issues, adrenal issues, were symptoms that I was battling every day. In addition, I was busy with 2 kiddos under the age of 3. I have a lot of mom guilt for being so tired and lacking energy to meet all of my kids needs.In addition to all of that, I was working full time, and had this great idea to start a blog. 

I started a blog about healthy eating, but I did not have time to journal in baby books about about the kids big life events? Mom guilt!  As I sit and think about what I just wrote, it seems silly. Prioritizing the health of my husband, the kids' dad,  and feeling guilty about it, just sounds ridiculous when it is said out loud. Desiring to keep a family healthy seems much more important than what their favorite veggie was when they first started to eat. 

While I was struggling with some health issues, my husband's cholesterol issue was the biggest one that we wanted to tackle. Needless to say, the conscientious act of cooking together not only physically improved my husband's health, it also brought the family together mentally too. Cooking daily in the kitchen leads to good conversations, hard conversations, tears, giggles, and mad cooking skills. 

Once the blog stopped, so did the healthy eating. We did do cooking, not with the intention of keeping healthy, but more for the purpose of convenience. Did we give our kids healthy meals? Sure. Could we have done better? Of course! As the kids got older with sports, and we got more tired, we developed a bad habit of eating out more. Sometimes sit down restaurants, other times, it was fast food. While we were eating out more, we were spending more money, that too became an issue with me working part time and having 2 kids in full time daycare.

Fast forward to a few years later, when Covid-19 hit. All of the eating out, and fast food came to a screeching halt. We knew that we needed to change our game and start cooking again. 

Final part next time....

TTFN,

Vanessa

Baked Cauliflower and Side Dishes....

We are still doing a lot of healthy eating. I have not had time to post a lot of new recipes, besides I don't like posting recipes unless I can share the actual recipe with my readers. I am going to start now looking for less main dishes and focus on side dishes and desserts. I've tried so many main dish meals that I know which ones I really like and we can start recycling them.

My sister told me about a recipe that she does to make cauliflower and broccoli more appealing to kids. Instead of serving fresh or steamed broccoli or cauliflower, she suggested to take head of either ( I chose cauliflower) and break it up into pieces. Put it in a container and toss it with some olive oil and salt. Then, bake it at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or so. I ended up turning the cauliflower about half way through because it started to get too brown on some sides. This is a dish that you'll really have to watch so it does not burn. Anyway, the dish was a pretty good. The cauliflower got soft but not mushy and almost had a "fried" taste like french fries. It is worth a try in making it.

As you know, I am always talking about how whole grains and whole wheats are better for us than white flour. I found this recipe booklet put out by the Gold Medal flour company that contains several whole wheat recipes that look quite interesting.

My goal is to find some more yummy recipes with you all. In the meantime, if you happen to find a recipe, food idea, health tip, etc... that you want to share, please put it in a comment or email me and I'll post it.

Thanks for reading...here is that cookbook link:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/gm/wholewheatbaking/

Sirloin and Feta...Can Life Get Any Better?

So, Thursday night was sirloin night. Who would have ever thought that a sirloin dinner would be healthy? I thought that red meat was "bad" for your health. But according to this recipe from the American Heart Association you can eat red meat. I am assuming in moderation like anything else in life!

This dish was amazing! Our daughter loved every bite. The tomatoes, feta and kalamata olives were so flavorful yet light at the same time. Since the sirloin was a four ounce serving we did not feel stuffed afterwards. The dish was quick to make, very delicious and perfect for summer.

You really should try this one!!!

http://heart.org/HEARTORG/General/Sirloin-with-Tomato-Olive-and-Feta-Topping_UCM_304721_Recipe.jsp

Lemon Sauced Chicken with Asparagus .....

Tonight we tried an American Heart Association recipe that was called "Lemon Sauced Chicken with Asparagus." This was a very good dish, but not what I had expected (looks wise). When I think of lemon sauce, I think of a yellow or hollandais sauce like substance. It was not pale yellow in color at all. It was actually a brown sauce because of the ingredient soy sauce. The look of the dish was similar to a dish that you might find in an asian restaurant.

The recipe first called for chicken breasts or turkey breast tenderloins. We had turkey because we already eat so much chicken.

http://heart.org/HEARTORG/General/Lemon-Sauced-Chicken-with-Asparagus_UCM_307605_Recipe.jsp

The dish was a hit, even our daughter really liked the dish. She gobbled the chicken but left the asparagus. This dish would have gone well with a side of rice and salad with a tangy vinagrette dressing!

Healthy Eating PDF Cookbook

I just found this cookbook online at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and thought I would share. It has some great information in regard to getting started with healthy eating, and it also has tons of recipes. I'll try some recipes from here and then tell you what I think of them over the next few weeks. In the meantime, try some of the recipes yourself and let me know what you think by leaving a comment at this blog entry!

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/other/ktb_recipebk/ktb_recipebk.pdf

Back on Track...

It has been a hectic few weeks. We've been pretty busy so I have not tried any new recipes. We are still eating healthy but we've been repeating some other recipes, ones that I've posted about in the past. Remember that I said that I wanted to start trying recipes that are already online so that I can share them with my readers? Tonight I tried a recipe from the American Heart Association called Pot Roast Ratatouille and Pasta: here it is...  http://heart.org/HEARTORG/General/Pot-Roast-Ratatouille-and-Pasta_UCM_304677_Recipe.jsp

I screwed up a couple of ways with this recipe. The recipe calls for a 1.5 pound roast. I bought the correct type of meat but the smallest roast size was 3.0 pounds. The recipe called for a cook time of 2.5 hours. I knew that I would have to increase the cook time, but I did not know by how much. I started out by increasing it by 30 minutes. Well, to make a long store short, I needed a total of another hour and a half to have the roast turn out tender.

I've learned from trial and error that if you cut into a roast that has been cooking a while, and it is gray, it is not done. Roasts should be tender!!!! I think one of the biggest mistakes people make when cooking roasts is that they don't cook them long enough and they turn out "tough"...low heat and longer cook times (often covered--so it doesn't dry out) should help make your roast tender.

So, since the roast took so long to make, it was not even close to being done for dinner.

In the future, I would brown the meat in a pan and then I would put the roast and all of the other ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. I am sure it will give the same results as what we got in the oven and you don't have to stay at home because the oven is on. Also, for the summer it is nice to keep the house cooler without having the oven on.

When the roast was finally done, my husband said that it was amazing and he is looking forward to leftovers. The roast calls for a pasta to accompany the the dish, we are serving brown rice with it instead. 

Just wanted to add one more thing that if you don't know how to prepare eggplant, just take the skins off and slice it up like you would any other vegetable. I read online that you can leave the skin on, however often the skin is tough and does not cook well.

Try it, you'll like it! Once you've made it, come back and leave a comment on this blog and tell me what you think of the recipe!

Pumpkin in June?

I've been pretty busy so lately I've been modifying our old recipes with healthier alternatives. For example, yesterday we made spaghetti but instead of using beef, we used ground turkey instead. In addition to the ground turkey we cooked with multi-grain noodles. Remember that in the past I've noted that the whole-wheat noodles are disgusting, but we cannot tell the different between multi-grain and "regular" noodles. 

Today I had a friend come over so I decided to make a healthy treat instead of a dinner, I am getting tired of trying dinners, wanted to change up the menu a bit. I made Pumpkin-Pie Coffeecake from the American Heart Association book on page 284. I was nervous to try this because it calls for pumpkin from the vegetable section of the grocery store, not canned pumpkin pie filling, wheat-bran cereal (I used Grape Nuts--which I hate!), flour, buttermilk (I learned that you can buy this in a canister (made of cardboard in the baking isle near the canned milks), suger, spices, egg whites, flour and some powered sugar (for the topping).

Well, let me tell you this...the "cake" is delicious!!!!! It has the consistency and texture of a very moist banana bread but with a pumpkin pie taste. I would make this treat in a heartbeat again. I think it would be great for breakfasts. Madison gobbled it up like it was going out of style...that is a very good sign. 

The recipe calls for it to be made in a 9 inch baking pan and to be cut into 12 pieces. At 12 pieces, each piece is 177 calories, 1 mg of cholesterol, and it says 6.5 grams fat ( I think that is because the recipe calls for pecans, but I did not use them...) This was an excellent recipe....try it out!

Sweet Wednesday

Last night was leftovers from Monday which were just as good if not better! 

Tonight I made a recipe from the Hungry Girl recipe, it was called "Sweet Coconut Crunch Shrimp" on page 379. Five shrimp (jumbo) equaled a serving which was 164 calories and only 4.5 grams of fat. For the main ingredient (breading) it had Fiber One bran cereal, coconut, bread crumbs, and some spices. Kevin gave this shrimp dish 4 stars. It was very easy to make. Prep time probably took about 20 minutes and then cook time was about 12 minutes. We did not even try to serve it to our little one. In general, she is not a big fan of shrimp. 

Along with the shrimp, we ate spinach and strawberry salad with a strawberry vinaigrette. The salad was not very high in calories either because the dressing was not creamy. The salad went well with the sweet coconut, it made a great summer dinner. What was even nicer is the fact that it is pretty cool outside so it was not a pain to have the oven on tonight. 

I think my next L-F and L-C dish will be pumpkin coffee cake from the American Heart Association Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol book. If you haven't bought these cookbooks, I would recommend them. Try checking them out at your local library before purchasing them.

Until next time!

Mexican Monday...

Ok, so tonight's dish was called "Outside-In Turkey Tamale Pie" from the Hungry Girl book, page 312. It was another crockpot recipe and it was delicious!!!! Basically I took ground turkey and browned it. Then the recipe called for kidney beans, but I don't like them so used pinto beans but you could use black beans too. I don't know why kidney beans were recommended but maybe they are lower in fat or more healthy. This may be true but I am not totally going to stop living by eating things that I think are disgusting. 

Besides the kidney beans the recipe called for various amounts of corn, black olives, diced tomatoes with chilies, instead of using the specific measurements I just poured the entire can in. How much fat or calories are in sweet corn? Probably not that much. Besides, what was I supposed to do with 1/2 a cup (can) of corn? There were also some spices. Then the recipes says to add the turkey to the crockpot, pour in the veggies and spices and finally add some cornmeal with chicken broth.


When the meal is done, the cornmeal has expanded with the turkey and veggies and makes it thick like a casserole. The Hungry Girl recommends adding fat free sour cream and fat free shredded cheddar cheese I took it one step further and added a spoonful of salsa to my plate. 


I am not one to love Mexican dishes but this one left me wanting seconds...of course I did not have them...I'll save them for lunch tomorrow. 


The recipe is supposed to serve seven people (1 cup each) and be 230 calories (this # may vary a bit depending on the calories in the type of bean and whether or not you use salsa etc..)

Salmon Leftovers...

Today I had to think fast about what to serve for lunch. I am posting about lunch today because tonight we have dinner plans with family.

I was trying to think about how I could reuse salmon without stinking up the house. I decided to serve a tomato and spinach salad with salmon and Annie's organic Goddess dressing. 

The salad was GREAT!!! What was funny is the fact that I really could not taste the spices on the salmon last night, but today I could really taste the spices, especially the thyme. I did not choose a low fat dressing because the meal last night was very healthy and lunch was healthy today too. I used just a serving of dressing on my salad which is 2 tablespoons, which actually was enough to coat the salad without over-kill. 

What I really love about salad is you can eat a lot of it and fill up on the greens. Filling up on vegetables is a really great way to make sure you don't over eat on the less healthy foods. The USDA has just come out with a different type of visual to help people eat healthier. The traditional model was a pyramid and it suggested that everyone eat three to five servings of vegetable a day, but who really knows how much that truly is. The USDA's new model is a dinner plate, which shows a plate that says 1/2 of the plate should be vegetables and fruits. Having a visual that we all call relate to makes more sense. 

Here is the link: USDA plate visual

Now time to think about tomorrows dinner!

Saturday Night is Salmon Night

Tonight I made a recipe from the Low Fat, Low Cholesterol by the American Heart Association called "Mediterranean Grilled Salmon" on page 110. There are 132 calories per serving, and a serving is considered 4 ounces of salmon. The steps to make the salmon were to marinade the salmon for up to two hours and then grill it. 

The marinade was not like a typical liquid marinade, it reminded more of a relish that sat on the salmon. The recipe called for Sage but I did not have Sage so I had to use Thyme instead. I chose Thyme because it has a bit of a lemon scent and flavor. By using Thyme instead of Sage the title of the recipe was null and void, Mediterranean it was not. I ended up doubling the recipe and making more salmon than what was required.  Along with the salmon, I served brown rice, and I sauteed some zucchini in olive oil mixed with garlic powder, salt and pepper.


Madison really like the fish, which was surprising! She also loved the rice but would not touch the zucchini.

I thought that overall the recipe was OK. However, I really did not taste a lot of the spices, the fish was a bit bland. More flavorful than if I had not used a marinade, but still bland.

I think that I prefer a marinade that you soak your meat in instead of one that is thick and sits on the meat. Now to figure out what to do with the leftovers because I cannot stand the smell of fish being heated up in the microwave!

No Cook Friday

Before lunch today I figured that I might struggle a little with Madison considering that she did not like dinner last night, and today was going to be left overs.....yummy..NOT! So, I looked through the fridge to see what I could add to the concoction that I made last night and I found some low fat Colby Jack cheese. I heated up the casserole dish and sprinkled some cheese on it, and it was a hit for her. It ended up tasting like tuna noodle casserole which is not a hit with a lot of people and very weird considering that there were no similar ingredients in the the dish that tuna noodle casserole has except for noodles and cheese.

Tonight is a no cook night. We try to have Fridays as our get out and do something exciting for dinner night, while still trying to make healthy choices.

Tomorrow I am going to be making a Mediterranean grilled salmon with a flavorful fresh herb marinade. It is coming from the AHA book.

I'll keep you posted about the meal....Good night!

Dinner was not a Winner!

Ok, dinner was not a winner. The "Cheeseburger Mac Attack" on page 308 of the Hungry Girl cookbook did not taste anything like a cheeseburger or Mac n Cheese! Usually I am pretty good at picking out recipes. If it does not taste like it came from a restaurant I don't like it. I am willing to take the time to make more difficult recipes as long as the end result is great! This was a very easy recipe, but normally crock-pot recipes are. I screwed up the recipe because it called for frozen cauliflower with cheese. 

I bought broccoli and cheese instead. That was a major mistake because normally if you cook cauliflower and then whip it, it can have a subtle taste like mashed potatoes. I discovered this by accident when I was making my daughter's baby food. She did not like the cauliflower and I tried it to see what the problem was. I was so surprised that the taste was remarkable the same as mashed potatoes but a lot healthier.The broccoli over powered the rest of the food, plus it made the house smell bad too.

Other than the cauliflower  with cheese, the recipe called for ground turkey, macaroni noodles, ketchup, onion powder and light Laughing Cow Swiss cheese. When I was preparing the meal I thought that it was odd that there were no liquids in the recipe. After seven hours on low, the meal was done. It was very dry and my husband said that it looked like stuffing that you serve with a turkey. The noodles and turkey just all blended together and looked very bland. If it had not been for the broccoli the dish would have been a dull yellow color. 

I was disappointed with this recipe because I've made others in the past from this book and they have been really good. Regardless of the fact that I used broccoli instead of cauliflower the dish still would have been bland, dry, and dull in color. Again as I've stated in my blog previously, fresh ingredients is the key to low fat meals. I should have read the ingredients better before making this. It was definitely lacking in flavor, unfortunately I was left after the meal feeling hungry :(

Tomorrow I'll try another Hungry Girl recipe. If anyone has any low-fat and low-cholesterol recipes that they would like me to try, send them and I'll tell you what I think of it!

Recipe serves 8 for 179 calories per serving

Our Official First Heart Healthy Recipe!

This was our official first heart healthy recipe that we tried a few months ago. It's salmon with a cilantro pesto.We initially realized, after eating the salmon, that you don't have to sacrifice taste to eat healthy. Fresh foods and spices are the key, when things are so flavorful, you don't need the fat!

Salmon Recipe

Day 3 of the experiment

We've been trying healthy eating recipes for about a month now but I've just recently decided that I want to share what we've learned with others.

I've been asked how I got interested in doing a blog about healthy eating. I got the idea after watching the movie Julie and Julia. After we found out that Kevin has high cholesterol I figured that I could try making healthy recipes and share the results with my friends and family. I want to be the messenger of healthy eating by making real recipes and having real people (especially my two year old and husband)evaluate and decide whether or not the recipes are worth making again. Often if Madison does not like the recipe, it is not good. I figure that if a two year old likes the food, it must be good!

I think that one of the reasons we did not eat as healthy as we could have in the past is because we did not know where to start. I ended up checking out some books at the library and then bought the ones that I enjoyed the most.

Once I started reading the healthy cookbooks I realized that I could start modifying our current recipes to make them better. We did not have to completely find new recipes.

I started by making banana bread and instead of using a 1/2 cup of butter, I used a 1/2 cup of unsweetened apple sauce. The bread was so delicious and moist and we did not miss the grease from the butter. Also, we started buying Egg Beaters instead of eggs. Did you know that just one large egg contains your entire daily intake of cholesterol? By eliminating the butter and yokes in the bread I pretty much eliminated fat and cholesterol.

Another small change that we've recently done is switch from whole grain breads and crackers instead of white or wheat. There is protein in the whole wheat grains and they are also complex carbohydrates which break down and digest differently. When it comes to pasta we now use the multi-grain pasta. The whole grain pasta is disgusting!!! However, the multi-grain pasta does not taste any differently than the standard pasta.

Tonight I will make a recipe from the Hungry Girl book called "Cheeseburger Mac Attack", it is a crockpot recipe....I'll post later to let you all know how it went!

Day 2 of the experiment....

Last night I decided to do a baked "fried chicken" recipe. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am do not really like chicken on the bone! However, my husband ended up buying some chicken breasts that must have been on sale. In the past, I've make "fried chicken" like meals where the breading just lacked flavor. Generally, I pick recipes based on whether or not my mouth waters while reading the ingredients. The recipes for oven fried chicken have not made my mouth water but had yummy ingredients like Captain Crunch as the main ingredient of the outer coating. Besides, the main ingredient those recipes lacked flavor. In the past, I also had not had oven fried chicken without the skins, which is where most of the best flavor seems to come from.

My challenge yesterday was to find a chicken recipe that called for "bone in" and the main catch was to find a recipe that was flavorful enough so that the missing skin would not matter.

I found a recipe in the book Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Cookbook (4th edition) called "Crispy Oven-Fried Chicken", page 138. What I liked about this recipe was that it called for "Cornflakes" as the main ingredient for the breading, and I already had some in the pantry which meant that I did not have to run to the grocery store with two little kids. I also liked the fact that there were some other flavors in the recipe such as salt, pepper, paprika, as well as ginger (which sounded gross). My only question for this recipe was: How do you get the breading to stick to the chicken? I did not see any ingredient that would really hold the breading on to the chicken. Besides the breading question, I knew that this was still not going to be that flavorful so I decided to research the concept of oven fried chicken by looking at my next favorite cookbook the Hungry Girl 300 under 300, which I think currently is a New York Times Best Seller!

The Hungry Girl has a recipe called "Chrispity Chrunchity Drumsticks" on page 354. the HG (Hungry Girl) recipe has salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried oregano, chili powder and a liquid egg substitute to hold the breading mixture on. The HG recipe calls for bran cereal for the breading which I am not a fan of, but am getting more used to.

I decided to go with the corn flakes and paprika from the first recipe and all of the ingredients from the HG book except for the bran. I doubled all of the ingredients to give the chicken a bit more "kick."

As the chicken was baking it sent an aroma that was so delicious smelling through the house, I could not believe it. As a rule, I do not like it when my house smells like the food that I am cooking, but this smell was delicious.

The number one food critic in my house is my two year old. The chicken was a hit for her. She likes flavorful food, and at times a bit spicy too. I was really impressed with how well the breading stuck to the chicken. It also had a crisp to it. I think the key to the crisp is cooking the chicken at a higher temperature (between 375 degrees and 400 degrees depending on the recipe) and not covering the chicken. The only soggy part of the chicken was the bottom where the chicken touched the baking dish.

Considering that the chicken skin was removed, this meal had a lot of flavor. I would definitely make it again!

The Experiment Begins...

Today I will start my healthy eating blog. I hear so often on the television that losing weight is a matter of calories in and calories out, along with exercise. My husband was just diagnosed with high cholesterol so I am going to make it my mission to help him become more healthy by cooking foods that are low in fat and cholesterol. I figure by blogging our experiment then I'll be more likely to continue with the cooking.


My goal is to try to get as healthy as possible and lose about 15 pounds by December of 2011.


we started this healthy lifestyle or should I say healthy life change about 2 months ago. We were doing well but then I went back to work after my maternity leave and we were not doing as well as I had hoped. When we initially started making healthier choices like using fat free sour cream, brown rice, multi-grain breads and pastas, consuming more vegetables and fiber etc... we noticed that we were really not missing out on much in regard to taste because we were choosing recipes that had a ton of flavor with fresh herbs. I think that is the key to healthy eating. You do not have to sacrifice taste for healthy eating.


We also noticed that the more we lowered our fat and cholesterol in our cooking the more gross food tasted when we went out to eat, especially fast food. There were times when we could actually taste and feel the fat just sitting on our tongues and coating our mouths. How disgusting.


The recipes that I've started using to make our meals are recommended by the American Heart Association. I've really loved the recipes from the book "Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Cookbook."


Along with using healthy recipes, I am going to try to take some of my old favorites and modify them to make them more healthy.


Wish me luck with my experiment...hopefully it will be life changing!