Roasted Beet Salad

Surprise!  Bonus post this week!  Yeah that’s right. Just thank the hubby who is at a meeting, the girls who are sleeping and the DEElicious dinner I made tonight that I shall now share with the world {read: you 10 or so readers.}

Look at those colors! And it’s a sooc shot!

So, the other day I received beautiful purple beets in my organic produce co-op crate.  It thought, well what in the heck am I going to do with these?  I’ve literally never, ever cooked beets in my entire life.

So that’s where Google came into the picture. (Pretty sure my family would have starved before the internet.) 

I found this recipe for a beet salad and adapted it slightly.

Ingredients:

Chicken breast

Mixed baby greens

Purple and gold beets

Lemon

lemon pepper

olive oil

feta cheese

salt and pepper

First, cut the stems off the beets, wash and place on aluminum foil.  Drizzle olive oil over the beets and sprinkle with salt.  Completely wrap the beets and place on your grill or in your oven (at about 350*). Check beets after about 20 minutes and remove when tender.

While the beets are roasting, sprinkle the chicken breast with lemon pepper and place on the grill.

When beets are done let them cool for a bit and when they are not too hot to handle, remove the skins.  Chop into quarters.

Place greens, chopped beets, and sliced grilled chicken into a bowl.  Squeeze lemon juice from a fresh lemon over the salad, drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some salt and crumble the feta cheese on top.

It is SO.SO good.  The tanginess of the feta cheese along with the sweet, roasted flavor of the beets is YUM.  (almost said YUM-O, shoot me I am NOT Rachael Ray.)

Another bonus?  It’s healthy.  Can’t beat that!  Apparently beets are insanely good for you.

Eat Chili--Eat Healthy

And.....we're back!!!

I take full responsibility for this blog's neglected state.  Well, it certainly doesn't look neglected--it looks very pretty (thanks, Kel!).  But for the lack of posts--yeah, that's my fault.

But it's a new year and we're off to a fresh start!  

Speaking of fresh starts, for a lot of people, the new year is a time to get healthy.  Whether is by losing weight, exercising more, eating better, people are committing (or re-committing) to taking care of themselves. And, like a lot people, I've got tips on how do that.   

Today's tip:  CHILI!!

I know, I know, chili is probably not what you think of when you think of healthy.  And, certainly, chili that comes on top of a bunch of fries with loads of cheese won't lead you down the path to a better body.  

But homemade chili can be really healthy--and DELICIOUS.  Make it with a lean protein, fiber-filled beans, lots of veggies--and it's a tasty, good-for-you meal.  I happen to love chili, especially this time of year and especially when I can just throw it all in the slow cooker and let it simmer away all day.  Because that's the other thing about chili--it's EASY.  

So here are a few of my faves.  And I did copy all the pictures from the blogs where I got these recipes because I wouldn't want to butcher their tasty work with my ugly photos.  

Sweet Potato Chili  
(adapted from crockpot365.com)

photo from crockpot365.com

This is my latest favorite.  Follow the link for the original recipe, but here's my slightly adapted version:

Ingredients:

1/2 lb or 1 lb (depending on how meaty you like your chili--I use less) boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and in 2-inch chunks
1 yellow onion, diced (I leave this out for my husband who is prejudiced against onions)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (15-ounce) can red kidney or pinto beans, drained and rinsed 

1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 (14.5-ounce) can tomatoes 

1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Directions

Place sweet potatoes and onions in crock pot.  Follow with the chicken, red bell pepper, can of tomatoes, the beans, garlic, and seasonings. Pour in chicken broth. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or until the onion is translucent and the sweet potato is fork-tender.  

You can go one of two ways with this chili.  Cut the sweet potatoes in bigger chunks and cook the chili for less time, which keeps the sweet potatoes more intact.  Or you cut the potatoes in smaller chunks, cook for a longer time, which results in sweet potatoes that fall apart and kind of mix into the chili, thickening and sweetening it and disguising the sweet potatoes from picky children.  I do a mixture of both ways, some big chunks and some little ones that I mash into the chili.

Top with cheese, sour cream, chips or cornbread.  It's sweet and smoky and YUMMY.  And healthy!

These next two chilis I'm just going to give you the links for because they're basically perfect just as they are.  They come from one the best food blogs out there: ourbestbites.com

photo from ourbestbites.com

White Chicken Chili

 A nice change from the traditional tomato-based chilis and oh so easy and oh so good.  This one is light, yet filling.  I could eat bowls and bowls of it.  

photo from ourbestbites.com

Chipotle Chocolate Chili

I know, you're probably thinking, chocolate?  In chili??  Yes, that's right and the combination is magical.  The little bit of chocolate in it gives the chili this rich, deep flavor.  It's sure to warm your tummy up.  Try it, you won't regret it.

And there you have it.  Three delicious ways to be healthy, warm and satisfied!

Real Food vs. Fake Food

Wow, September is flying by! It'll be Christmas before we know it.  

From some of my previous posts, you should all know I'm kind of into healthy eating.  (Unfortunately, I'm also way into dessert eating--I  have dessert like 6 or 7 times a day. But that's another post.)  And you probably realize that there's lots of advice out there on how to eat healthy--like, eat "superfoods" every day, cut out refined sugar, eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, and so on.  Sometimes I have a hard time remembering all that when I'm hungry or out grocery shopping.  So, to make life easier,  the one rule I try to abide by is simple:

Eat Real Food

So simple, it seems like common sense, right? I mean, who wants to eat fake food?  Well, I'd venture to guess that most people do not follow this rule.  A lot of "food" out there is processed and filled with artificial ingredients--stuff that your body has a harder time processing and converting into good energy.  An easy way to be a little healthier is to simply eat food that is made from ingredients that are close to their original state and are not created in some factory.   But eating this way doesn't mean you have to turn into some health freak.  Here is the number one thing  I do to ensure that I (and my loved ones) eat real food.

Read ingredient lists

Easy, so effective, and yet, I bet most people don't do it. 

You know this thing that's on all the food you buy at the grocery store?

A lot of stuff on here is important, especially if you are trying to watch your weight or your fat intake or whatever.  But what I look at most is...

...the ingredient list.  This is what tells you if what you're eating is real food.  If you know what all of the stuff is in the ingredient list of a food you're eating, then chances are, you're eating real food.  

Every time I think about buying something that I've never bought before, I always, always read the ingredient list.  Even on things like bread or yogurt, because some weird stuff can be hidden in there.  Take this ingredient list from a loaf of "healthy", 100% whole wheat bread:

Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Wheat Gluten, Contains 2% or Less Of Soybean Oil, Salt, High Fructose Corn Syrup (Adds a Trivial Amount Of Sugar), Cultured Wheat Starch, Ethoxylated Mono and Diglycerides, Calcium Sulfate, Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Enzymes, Calcium Dioxide, Vinegar, Sucralose.


It starts out well.  But then there's the high fructose corn syrup and all that stuff ending in -ides and -ates.  What is that anyway?

Image courtesy of AP.

Personally, I prefer to eat this:
Whole Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Cracked Wheat, Cultured Wheat Flour. Contains 2% Or Less Of: Honey, Salt, Brown Sugar, Soybean Oil, Molasses, Wheat Bran, Raisin Juice Concentrate, Vinegar, Soy Flour, Whey, Soy Lecithin, Cultured Corns Solids. Contains Wheat, Milk And Soybeans.

Now, I can recognize what most of that stuff is.  And this bread is said to be 100% natural.  Not just, "made with natural ingredients"--because that can also mean it's made with un-natural ingredients, too.

Let's look at yogurt:

Yogurt's a health food, right?  Well, yes, but to really have it be good for you, you've got to pay attention to the ingredient list on the yogurt you're consuming.

This--

 Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Lowfat Fat Milk, Sugar, Strawberries, Modified Cornstarch, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Nonfat Milk, Kosher Gelatin, Citric Acid, Tricalcium Phosphate, Natural Flavor, Pectin, Colored With Carmine, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3. 

--not so good.

This--

CULTURED PASTEURIZED NONFAT MILK, STRAWBERRIES, SUGAR. CONTAINS FIVE LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES INCLUDING S. THERMAPHILUS, BULGARICUS, L. ACIDOPHILUS, BIFIDUS, AND L. CASEI.

--much, much better!  This yogurt, (Chobani strawberry, in case you were wondering) actually only has three ingredients--milk, strawberries, and sugar.  The fewer ingredients something has, the better.

I also check out the ingredients on not-so-healthy foods, like potato chips.  

Image from fritolay.com

My potato chips of choice (Lays) contain three ingredients: potatoes, sunflower oil and salt.  Now eating a whole bag of these is not healthy.  But I feel much better about putting that stuff into my body than I do if I were to eat chips with ingredients like these:

DRIED POTATOES, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN OIL, COTTONSEED OIL, SOYBEAN OIL, AND/OR SUNFLOWER OIL), RICE FLOUR, WHEAT STARCH, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT AND DEXTROSE. CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS.

So, no matter what it is, from granola bars for my kids, to onion soup mixes for dinner, I always base my decision about whether or not to buy or consume a food item on that item's ingredient list.

There are lots of other ways to "eat real food" and so many great blogs and resources out there on ways to do it, but I'll save some of that info for future posts!  Actually, I just really need to get this post up! :)

Healthy AND Yummy Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Got some mushy, brown bananas but are sick of banana bread? (Although, who gets sick of banana bread?) Or looking for a snack that's tasty but good for you? Well, here ya go. I make these cookies A LOT. They are my go-to cookie recipe when I'm trying to watch my refined sugar intake (which, let's be real, hasn't been happening given it's Cadbury Egg season). Plus, the kids love them (T likes them better than about any other cookie I make) and I don't feel guilty if they (or I) eat them for breakfast.

Now, please note that these cookies are not these cookies. They do have some health value. So don't expect them to be the type of cookies that you would die for. But they're pretty good.

I got the original recipe here and altered it ever so slightly. I doubled it, use honey instead of agave nectar (I'm not so current with the health scene that I have that on hand) and use regular milk.

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour (I use white whole wheat)

2 cups oats

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 T ground flaxseed meal

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 T canola oil

2 ripe bananas, mushed

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients. Drop on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 min.

The dough is pretty good to eat. And no eggs, so no worries there, if you even have those worries (which I know my dear readers do not).

Get yourself a cute helper like this one.

And enjoy! Just for full disclosure's sake, I did make the cookies in this picture with brown sugar so I could avoid the whole botulism thing and give some to Ruby. She enjoyed them thoroughly.

Recipes

In an attempt to kick off this blog, I'm positing again. I'm sure Lindsay is eye-deep in sleep training and is probably a little exhausted. Kelli and Cindy have no excuses. :)

Have any of you tried any new, delicious recipes lately?

Lindsay has a link to her blog on her blog, but sometimes I read www.katheats.com and it's a girl who photographs pictures of every she eats and eats mostly whole foods. She always makes oatmeal that looks so delicious so the other morning I made this:

1/3 cup oats
1/3 fat free milk
1/3 cup water
little salt
cooked those ingredients until right consistency and then added:
pumpkin
cottage cheese
splash of vanilla
little bit of brown sugar
dollop of nutella
topped it with organic pumpkin seed granola (found at Costco-very good!) Oh my gosh it was SO SO GOOD. I've had it for breakfast the past 3 mornings now. It's so filling and so tasty. I really don't add that much nutella, but it gets all melty and warm and it's just delish.

So anybody else?