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!