La Vida Fresca

Lest you thought I quit eating, I figured I’d post a little something just to put your fears to rest. Yes, I am still eating. Very well, actually. I was going to post a photo of my new favorite healthy meal, but I only got one photo the other day (I made the meal again tonight but was too lazy to dig my camera out) and that  photo is of too poor quality to post. What is this tasty meal, you ask? I’ve been eating oven roasted eggplant and zucchini, usually with spaghetti sauce and/or ketchup. I’ve been cubing the eggplant in big chunks (sans skin) and either slicing across the width of the zucchini (little circles) or slicing the long way, spraying generously with cooking spray, and sprinkling on salt and pepper. Mmmm. So simple and sooo tasty. Tonight’s dinner was also beautiful, by the way :-)

Since I don’t have a food photo, I thought I’d make it up to you by posting this really goofy pic of me jumping up off the ground while wearing a bike helmet.

Now don’t you feel better?

:-)

Tonight was use-up-the-big-bag-of-tortillas night — er wrap night.  We had turkey, the same shredded cheese from last night, lettuce, and tomato wrapped up in a whole wheat tortilla.  Another light, extremely quick and easy meal.

This is actually a photo of Kevin’s.  I over-stuffed mine and it exploded.  But it was still very good.

Totals for mine, which included yogurt cheese  and jalapeños, with the side of apples, carrots, and pickles added in :

calories  385

fat  13 grams

carbohydrate  51 grams

protein  22 grams

I’ll leave you with a photo of this evening’s beverage, carbonated (seltzer) water with lime, in our fanciest glass …

Tonight we had our version of taco pizza. T-t-tasty tasty! It’s also really light, easy and fast.

These involve whole wheat tortillas, beef with taco seasoning, and the usual toppings: lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, sour cream, and jalapeños. This time though, I decided to use yogurt cheese because that’s what I had on hand and I wanted to see how it would taste on a taco pizza. I was doubtful because I don’t like it plain (it was made with nonfat plain yogurt) but it was actually a good combination with the jalapeños.

Directions go like this: cook ground beef, add taco seasoning. Take tortilla and put on cookie sheet sprayed lightly with cooking spray (or put on aluminum foil on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray to minimize the cleanup). Put some meat on it, sprinkle on some cheese, leave it in a 450 oven for about four minutes. The tortilla gets crispy and hard enough to hold its shape when you pick it up. Then pile on whatever other items you like :-)

Home slice with his slice ….

Here’s the breakdown for one taco pizza with a little under three ounces of beef, 1/3 cup of cheese, lettuce, tomato, jalapeños, yogurt cheese, and one tortilla each:

Calories 380
Fat 16 grams
Carbohydrate 31 grams
Protein 31 grams

Today I started a new dinner adventure: “Eat like a Spartan.” Previous dinner adventures include $14- and $16-limits for five weeknight meals for two. The rules were each meal had to have a protein, quality starch, and vegetable, none of which could come from a can. I’m planning this one for five nights too, unless something else comes up (like, say, we end up going out to eat or I just really want to do something else). For the purpose of this exercise, Spartan means three things:

• Inexpensive (goal is between $4 and $5 per person, per meal).

• Made of a few simple ingredients, including meat.

• And lastly, these are meals the guys training for the “300″ movie might’ve eaten. For this I’m making meals that don’t include starches. This part is pure speculation, as I have no idea what they really ate, although I think I remember reading they ate somewhere around 1,800 calories while training hard at Gym Jones. If that’s true, it must’ve been a very sad, hungry time for them. I don’t think I’d be happy on that much food doing what they did. However, they did get to train at Gym Jones as part of their job, so that alone makes me not feel sorry for them.

Back to the point. This is tonight’s dinner and stats. It’s kind of light on the calories though. Spartans might require a little more. I’m just kind of winging it here, but if I were going to modify this, I’d add more protein.

350 calories

16 fat

34 carb

22 protein

Even though it’s low on calories, it’s actually quite a lot of food. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the salad items, especially the tomatoes, were huge. I left them in big pieces because Spartans don’t like dainty salads. :- ) There’s a big piece of chicken, three carrots, a whole large tomato and whole cucumber per person. We couldn’t even finish all the salad.

I also used two tablespoons of olive oil total and some cooking spray. It was $8.58 total*/$4.29 per person — less than an Extra Value Meal at McDonald’s. I use this comparison because you always hear people complain that they have to eat junk and fast food because “healthy” food is too expensive.

*I figured the cost of the chicken is 2/3 of the price of the chicken on the receipt, because I used that much out of the pack. The rest I’ll use in another meal, most likely in the next few days.

Black-eyed peas = luck, greens = wealth.

Today we had our traditional New Year’s Day dinner at the family’s house: black-eyed peas, collard greens, and white rice. Every January 1, they generously cook up this food and make sure everybody has some for health, wealth, and general good luck. It’s all very casual and we just show up and eat whenever we feel like it. Usually we have cornbread too but my mother-in-law served baked macaroni and cheese with it this year instead, which was fine with me. I like cornbread but I’m also quite fond of her macaroni and cheese. It’s one of my favorites. Of course I had to douse the mac and cheese with hot sauce. It’s so good that way.

That was my little plate. (I used a tiny plate because I wanted to sample all of the desserts, which I did. Some more than once.) The greens were fresh from their garden and so was the onion. Note the piece of hog jowl on the peas. They always make sure everybody eats a portion of the jowl for good luck, whether we like it (some do) or not (me).

The desserts, all made by my mother-in-law, were scrumptious: Coconut Dream Pie, strawberry shortcake, and chocolate pie. The cake part of the shortcake was Kathryn’s Favorite Cake from the Dillard House Cookbook. Yum.

Tonight was soup night. We had chicken noodle (whole wheat) and chicken and rice soup.

The rice looked like birdseed but it was actually this crazy blend of long grain brown rice, sweet brown rice, something called Wehani, and Black Japonica (whatever that is). I got the rice (Lundberg Family Farms Wild Blend) a while back from a bulk bin at a health food store. I only bought 3/4 cup so it was really cheap and just the right amount for the soup I made. The texture was neat and I thought it was perfect for the soup. However, I don’t think it would be very appealing on its own as a side dish.

My helper and I made a big pot of chicken breast cooked with sliced baby carrots, onion, celery, and spices. Then we divided it up into two pots: one for the rice soup and one for the noodle. The idea was to make a bunch of soup and stockpile individual portions in the freezer. Even with just the three of us, I only had three (puny) individual portions to freeze. Good thing it was light! We also had a salad to go with it.