New Favorites

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Sorry I've been MIA- I was busy drinking and eating far too much. It was fantastic :)

I'm excited for a conference call taking place tonight where I'll learn more about the Cleanse that starts on January 18th. I think it will be a great nudge to help cut some of the processed and not so healthy stuff out of my diet. It will also force me out of my daily habits of coffee with creamer in the morning and a glass of wine at night. Well... at least for ten days. Seriously, though I'm hoping this will be the jump start to have herbal tea in the morning and treat wine as weekend rather than nightly treat. Do I sound like a lush? Ah well, it's my source of antioxidants for the day ;) Anywho, there's information about the cleanse available at http://www.choosingraw.com/ or http://sparkyourwellness.wordpress.com/. It's not a "scary" cleanse, but rather one that focuses on real, unprocessed food. I can't wait!

The new year has brought some changes, so my greatest challenge over the past month or so has been learning how to re-tweak some of my old recipes (and learn new ones) that work for dinner and maybe lunch rather than cooking in larger quantities. I can eat a meal twice-max, and then it just doesn't taste good anymore.

So with no further ado, here are some of my new favorites:

Southwest Glop (Perhaps I should work on a new name...)

• 1 peeled and diced sweet potato
• 1 can black beans, rinsed
• 1 can (or about 1 1/2 c frozen) sweet corn
• Fresh tomato
• Avocado
• Yogurt (optional)

Peel the sweet potato, dice into about 1/2 inch cubes, and spread on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder on the sweet potato and bake at 425 for about 30 minutes, or until they are soft and start to brown. Meanwhile, heat the black beans of corn in a medium size pan with a dash of olive oil. I usually let the s.p.s cook for about 15 minutes before starting the corn/bean mixture. When the sweet potatoes are finished, throw them into the pan with the corn and beans and stir. This mixture is great on it's own, but even better with a little Tabasco on top, 1/2 sliced avocado, fresh tomato. I also discovered that a little plain yogurt is the perfect garnish! Such a quick and easy dinner!

Un-fried Rice (inspired by Caitlin at http://www.healthytippingpoint.com/)

• 
  
  1 c cooked brown rice
• 1 c mixed veggies
• 1 egg or 1/4 block tofu
• 1 tsp garlic
• soy sauce

Cube tofu (or scramble an egg) and heat in a medium sized pan with a little olive oil (or cooking spray) and garlic, add vegetables (I used a cheapie frozen mix of corn, carrots, green beans, and peas- it reminded me of old school cafeteria lunches and fresh would be much better) and heat, add brown rice and soy sauce to taste. I was lazy and used the little pre-cooked cups of brown rice you can buy at the grocery store. For some reason I have terrible luck cooking brown rice and using the pre-cooked kind made the recipe perfect for a quick lunch hour meal. I also added a little hot sauce for extra flavor. The tofu ended up falling apart and resembling the consistency of an egg so it worked pretty well. I will admit that the frozen veggies were a bit of a bummer, so next time I'll use fresh and the recipe will definitely be a keeper. I had this by itself as lunch, but it would also be a great side dish.

Black Bean Tostadas (Inspired by Molly and Bon Appetite)

• 
  
  2 small corn tortillas
• 1/2 c rinsed black beans
• 1 c chopped cabbage
• 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
• sprinkle of feta
• fresh salsa

In a frying pan with a coat of cooking spray, lay out the two corn tortillas and top each with 1/4 c black beans. Heat until beans are warm and tortillas are crisp. Top with 1/2 c cabbage each (or less if you'd like), sprinkle with lemon or lime juice and feta, and add fresh salsa (I used the refrigerated Albertsons brand). Dinner is ready! Molly's version (a recipe from Bon Appetite)is much more gourmet and tasty, but this is sort of the quick and cheap version. The whole meal also comes in at under 300 calories, which is my perfect lunch size (2 tortillas- 110 cals, 1/2 c black beans- 100 cals, reduced fat feta- about 80 cals).

And the close up:

Happy cooking!