Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the Cooking category.
Cozy Cooking
During the week, I am usually all about quick and easy meals with minimal clean up. For these recipes, I always check to see what my dear friend the Pantry Chef is up to. Her meals are easy, cheap and most importantly, delicious!
But last night, I was feeling adventurous and creative and with the “cooler” weather in Arizona, I was ready to try something new, cozy and complicated. Something that would make me spend some more time than normal in the kitchen. Our temperatures are finally out of the 90s and into the low 80s and it feels good here! I was no longer afraid to turn the oven on. So, I searched some of my favorite blogs and found this delicious recipe.
I found last nights dinner at For The Love of Cooking. With a few slight changes (for time’s sake) we had a delicious meal Baked Penne Pasta with Mushrooms.
I cut the recipe in half but, in retrospect, could have used more sauce for sure. It was so good. I also did not have time to simmer the sauce for a few hours but it simmered for about ten minutes while the penne cooked and that was enough. The recipe at For the Love of Cooking called for an immersion blender. I don’t have one of those but would love one for my upcoming birthday. Hint, friends. Hint. Instead I used a masher to blend the roasted tomatoes and it worked just fine.
This part was my favorite – roasted tomatoes to make the sauce, stuffed with garlic and topped with olive oil and onion. Delish!
Roasted Tomatoes and Onions with Garlic
The finished product!
We have plenty of leftovers too for lunches and future dinners. This would be a great meal to take to a new neighbor or a new mom.
Tomorrow I’ll spend some time talking about working out while growing a baby!
Reality Check and Breakfast Enchiladas.
Living on base can often feel like camp.
There’s bowling.
There’s Bingo.
There is a golf course.
It can really feel like summer camp. However, this past week has been a slap in the face that we DO NOT LIVE at military fun camp. There are actually two wars going on. Well, there are more than that. But, two big wars that most of our Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen are fighting. The slap in the face started last week when 8 US Airmen were killed in Afghanistan. The slaps kept coming last night with the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death.
I love living on base. There’s always a lot going on and a lot of people running around. But, if it’s easy to forget here, then it has to be super easy to forget off base when people aren’t in uniforms every day and they don’t play the Star Spangled Banner every day at 5 pm. Yes, they do that here. The truth of the matter is that whether we like it or not, we are still a nation at war and we will always be the land of the free because of the brave.
I’ll get off my soapbox now but just needed to add my two cents. I also wanted to share a quick and easy breakfast recipe. We ran out of milk last week – chaos ensued. For sure.
Here was my solution. I was in a hurry so I don’t have any pictures.
Breakfast Enchiladas
Serves 2
Ingredients:
- 2 corn tortillas (flour is fine too but corn is a bit healthier)
- 3 egg whites (you can use all of the egg if you prefer, but again, whites are a bit healthier)
- 1 egg
- 1 Bell Pepper, chopped (I went to the grocery store and they were SO expensive so I cut these out)
- 1 Onion
- 1 Tomato
- 1/4 cup cheese, reduced fat
- Pinch of Salt
- Pinch of Pepper
- 1 Tbsp Salsa
- 1 Tbsp Sour Cream
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray. Scramble egg whites and egg until cooked. Add chopped bell pepper, other veggies and cheese. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Place 1/2 of mixture in one tortilla and the other half in the other tortilla. Folds end of tortilla in and roll up. Place seam down on baking sheet. Put in oven until tortilla is browned, 5 – 8 minutes.
Top with salsa and sour cream.
It’s a quick, easy breakfast fix and you can use whatever is in your kitchen.
We are off for a quick run before dinner, which tonight will just be leftovers. 
Still Unwritten
Just Another Day in Paradise
I woke up bright and early at 6:30 for a 4 mile run at the gym on base. Feeling very unmotivated, I ended up hanging out with the dog in our sunny backyard for a few and downloading some new music from iTunes. When I don’t want to hit the gym, new music is a quick cheap fix. Other fixes that aren’t so quick or cheap include new running clothes and promises of a pedi after a good run. I also sign up for races to motivate myself – like Pat’s Run next weekend! But, today, some new music did the trick and I hit the gym with a new playlist.
Running is the best therapy session and I felt so much better after the workout. We went on an Alaskan cruise in August where I took a yoga class on the ship. It was a much older crowd at the class and I remember thinking that I would make myself stay in shape for the rest of my life because the older people were so out of shape that very simple poses were very difficult for them. The same thing is true about running. If you keep up with it, it’s not that hard. It’s when you lose focus and retreat in mileage that it becomes trying and not fun.
I headed home in a much better mood than when I left for the gym and hit the kitchen. Breakfast for myself and the husband included eggs and toast. Then, I started preparing lunch. We were having new friends over since we are watching their dog when he deploys so we wanted the dogs to meet each other. I am so excited! The dog is a little Westie named Sadie and we get her for six months. Stafford is excited to have a friend in the house and we are excited to see if we can really handle two dogs at once. It’s feels good to do something for someone else in light of everything that people have done for us over the past few months. It’s also been too easy to start feeling sorry for myself lately but focusing on someone else and taking the focus off of me pulls me right back to reality.
I wanted to share with you my favorite part of lunch, the Vegetable Hummus Rollups. Delicious!
Vegetable Hummus Rollups
Serves 4
- 4 8-inch tortillas (flour or corn)
- Hummus (about 1/4 cup)
- Curry Powder (to taste, optional)
- Spinach
- Carrots
- Cucumber
- Feta cheese (optional)
- Kalamata olives (optional)
- Any other delicious, fresh veggies!
Spread hummus on each tortilla, leaving a border around each tortilla. Sprinkle curry powder to taste. If you don’t like curry, you could substitute paprika. Spread desired vegetables over the hummus.
Roll up tortillas and cut into 1 inch pieces.
For a non vegetarian option, you could add deli turkey or even chicken. Enjoy!
Still Unwritten
This Little One Went To The Market
The guest rooms are made up, the fridge is full and the bathrooms are cleaned. Yup, folks, that’s right, MY FAMILY is coming this weekend! I couldn’t be more excited to see their beautiful faces.
I spent the morning at the commissary (military speak for the grocery store) loading up on all things Midwest. I remember when I started grocery shopping for myself and my husband, I was kind of lost. It was overwhelming for me! How do I eat healthy, buy enough without buying too much AND stay on a very tight budget?
Over time, I have loosened up and actually enjoy going to the grocery store. Here’s a few tips for those just starting out, or those who don’t go very much.
I go to the grocery store once a week or every other week. Lately, its been every other week thanks to my dear friend, The Pantry Chef. I lived with her for one month and I swear she never did a grocery trip except for the standard milk, cereal and Diet Coke runs. We ate healthy and never ran out of food.
I am trying to go to the store less and use more of what I have but with family coming in and three days of feeding big (but healthy eaters), I had to do a big trip.
- If you can, go during the weekday. The store is less crowded and you can think more about the best financial AND nutritional value.
- Make a list and search for coupons before you go. The commissary has a coupon table when you walk in, and most grocery stores have advertisements at their doors. But, in the moment, you want to get in and get out. You are not actually going to be THAT person ripping out coupons.
- It helps if you are familiar with your grocery store and can categorize your list by aisles. If not, you will be soon enough and most grocery stores have a similar lay out.
- Avoid the inside aisles as much as you can. Your list should be comprised mostly of produce (fresh or frozen) and the highly processed foods in the middle of store should be few and far between.
- Have a plan for the next week or two for every meal. This has been essential for us as my husband’s radiation treatments are at 7 pm every night – prime dinner time. Dinner needs to be ready before or immediately after. Planning also lets you go back and make sure your meals are healthy.
- Before you check out, do a quick evaluation of your cart. Are there more greens than whites? Review your list one more time.
- Lastly, don’t be afraid to try new things. My brother always picks out the weirdest things that I would never buy, mostly ethnic foods that I end up LOVING.
- The final test will be when you get home. Are you happy with the healthy food in your fridge?
Now that I had all of this fresh fruit and because the temperature has finally hit 90 degrees, I was in desperate need of a fruit smoothie, which meant I had to buy a blender. Ours was lost in the move. There’s a thousand ways to make great smoothies, but here’s what I do!
Mix plain non fat yogurt, any fruit you want, a bit of vanilla extract and some ice.
Blend. Drink and be creepy merry.
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Taste Worth Dying For
I hesitate to write this blog post because I hate to give publicity to this type of place. BUT, I think it’s important to know the extremes of unhealthy living. One of my best girlfriends sent me this link that led me to write this post.
The Heart Attack Grill, located outside of my new city, Phoenix, serves 8,000 calorie hamburgers for free to people over 350 pounds. Their hamburgers are named after heart surgeries and their fries are advertised as being cooked in 100% lard. There is a scale in the middle of the restaurant and once a customer proves they have hit 350 pounds, their meals are free.
Image from FitPerez.com
With the slogan, “Taste Worth Dying For”, they are carrying through their promise of killing off their customers. Their spokesperson, who weighed in at 575 pounds, died at age 29 a couple of weeks ago leaving behind a five year old daughter.
The restaurant maintains that it is a place where obese people can come eat and not be judged. They can be accepted. I would argue that you can accept who a person is with also accepting their flaws but without enabling their poor choices.
The sad thing is that a normal healthy person, with a healthy view on eating and weight management would be disgusted by this. However, Heart Attack Grill is taking advantage of the insecurities that obese people have to make a profit. They are also taking advantage of the correlation between poverty and obesity by providing financial incentives to get and stay unhealthy.
This shouldn’t give Phoenix a bad name. There are tons of local restaurants that are part of the Slow Food USA movement and value healthy eating styles. We are looking forward to trying one in particuler: The Farm at South Mountain.
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The Fighter
Whew. Today’s workout was a doozy. By accident. Who knew today was Thursday? Not me, that’s for sure.
Let me back up. I have been having a difficult time finding people my own age around here. I went to a yoga class yesterday and again, it was me and a lot of older people. I would definitely call it more of a stretching class than a yoga class. Still beneficial, just not what I was looking for. So today I decided to take a step aerobics class. That’s something cool hip young people do, right?
In case it wasn’t, I hit the gym a little early to get a good workout in. 30 minutes of elliptical and a quick 1.5 mile run later, I was in the aerobics center ready for step class. Everyone else was ready for a kickboxing class. Again, who knew it was Thursday? Oops.
It was definitely full of young people and a very intense instructor. I felt like I was the one in the military! No modifications in this class. The most vivid memory I have of the class is, “This isn’t ballet class. Get those legs up! PUNCH HIM!” Phew, it was intense and a bit angry. But pretty fun and halfway through the class I realized I was really enjoying myself!
I came home tired and hungry so got an early start on dinner. I know a lot of people who are scared of their slow cookers. DON’T BE! They are great. Here’s a quick and easy dinner to try – a great starter recipe for those of us who get nervous using their slow cooker.
Ingredients:
Chicken breasts (I just did two, since it’s only the hubs and I)
Curry Powder (At least 1 tsp, I dumped it in, love curry!)
Cranberry Sauce (I used 1/2 can of whole berry cranberry sauce, but you could always make your own!)
Cinnamon and Nutmeg (to taste)
Apple (I used a gala but any type will do!)
Pecans (topping, if desired)
Coconut (topping, if desired)
Mix curry, cinnamon, nutmeg, cranberry sauce and chopped apple together
Put chicken in slow cooker
Pour cranberry mixture over chicken and cook on low until done. Probably around 4 hours.
Serve with nuts and coconut, if desired. Good side items include brown rice and veggies. ENJOY!
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Less Is More
A killer headache kept me out the gym today, but not out of the kitchen. While Stafford did laundry, I started baking and making dinner.
Stafford throwing the bedding in the wash
Every recipe I make, I try to make it even more simple and use less bowls and pans than the recipe calls for. This has become somewhat “mission critical” since we moved to Alabama. Since we are only in Alabama for a short time (just a few more weeks!), I was not able to bring a lot of my kitchen supplies. Everything is in storage in Phoenix so all meals need to have minimal preparation and dirty dishes. Most measurements are estimated as you’ll see by the recipe below.
The cookie recipe from Martha Stewart, (don’t judge. She has great products and info on pets) called for an electronic mixer with a paddle attachment. Yeah, right. I haven’t seen my beautiful KitchenAid in months. It called for wire racks. Not even sure I packed those in storage…so, I made cookies with what I had.
It was um…less than professional.
But, they turned out great just the same!
Dinner was a healthy version of Chicken Parm from Betty Crocker’s cookbook app. Delish and easy too!
Start by pounding out a couple of raw chicken breasts until they are each 1/4 inch thick. I literally put them on wax paper, covered with another sheet of wax paper and pounded them out with my fist. No meat mallet necessary.
Thaw one container of frozen spinach and mix in a bowl with some cream cheese (lowfat is fine) and garlic. Spread the mixture over the chicken breasts.
Roll the chicken breasts up, pour egg substitute (or egg yoke would be fine) and crushed wheat crackers (or bread crumbs) over it. Put in greased baking dish.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Cover in pasta sauce and lowfat cheese and throw it back in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the meat hits 165 degrees. No meat thermometer here, so I just cut it in half to make sure it was done.
Serve with veggies for a healthy easy meal with limited dishes to do! Just my style.
Still Unwritten
