Lighten and Brighten Your Lunch

If you work from home like I do - maybe, sometimes, you don't really fix yourself a real lunch.  Maybe you just munch a bit here and there - like grab an apple, eat a bagel.  Maybe you eat standing up or don't even use a plate.  Ok- I have bad eating habits even though I eat healthy, the fact that I don't fix a real meal and sit down to enjoy it probably has an impact on my digestion and my lunch health as a whole.  How about you?

One of the benefits of staying home to work is not having to buy meals - or even prepare them to carry in to work.  But sometimes, that makes meal time both boring and lonely.  Or at least that's how it is for me.  I've been trying to create exciting lunch meals for myself that I actually sit down and eat - from a plate.

Here's what I made today:

Crisp butterhead lettuce from my CSA.  A layer or organic pea shoots (Trader Joes).  Some shreds of raw organic sharp cheddar (Oakmont Farmer's Market).  I put these on a plate and then made up a fancy tuna salad to put on top.  I used a can of TJs tuna, a tablespoon or so of organic mayo, salt, pepper, shredded carrots, chopped red pearl onions (CSA), walnut pieces and topped it off with fresh dill (CSA).

It looked super pretty and it tasted great! I was satisfied all day.  It felt more like a treat than my usual stand around and grab some food kinda lunches.  Now, I'm not opposed to having a friend join me for such a lunch, but today - I ate this solo.

Do you work from home?  What's lunch like for you - do you sit down and eat a formal meal?  Anything that you love to make that's easy and filling and quick to both make and eat?  I'm happy to hear all about it - Sher

How Do You Porridge?

Porridge - what do you think of when you hear that word?  For me it means any hot, cooked grain cereal that one would eat - probably for breakfast.  Tho. I think porridge can be farina, cream of wheat, grits, oatmeal, etc...

My favorite porridge is oatmeal and I make something of a science of preparing myself a healthy and filling bowl of the stuff.  Here's what I do:

1.  Start with some healthy old fashioned rolled oats.  I prefer not to use the little packages of oats and not to use quick cooking oats and not to use flavored or pre-sweetened oats.  In the USA, I try to eat as much organic food as possible since giant chemical lobbies like the evil Monsanto company are allowed to put all kinds of crap in our food AND not even label it as such.  So, I use these organic oats:

2.  Measure out the amount of oats you wish to use.  In the USA our measurements are in volume rather than weight.  Just use any small cup, it doesn't even have to be a measurement cup and dump it in the pot.  Typically I use about 1/3 cup of oats, today I used 1/2 cup of oats since I just came back from a 5K run and didn't have breakfast before I went, I'm now really hungry!

3.  Using the same cup you used to measure the oats, fill it twice with water and add that to the oats in your pot.

4.  Cook the oats on medium heat until they are no longer watery or shiny.

5.  While the oats are cooking prepare the extras.  I love all the extras in my oatmeal.  I typically use whatever I have on hand.  Today it was 1/2 a banana.  I cut it up and put it in the bowl before the oatmeal.

6.  Then the berries (warning - in the USA use organic berries ONLY - non-organic berries are loaded with pesticides) which today were raspberries (my favorite berry) and strawberries.  I like to put half the berries under the oatmeal and the other half on top.

7.  When the oats finish their cooking, I dump them atop the bananas and berries.

8.  Then I put little clumps of Earth Balance (aka my butter) in the oatmeal.

9.  I chopped a few dates and added them.

10.  The rest of the berries were added to the top.

11.  The whole thing was finished with raw sliced almond and pecans.

Note:  I love a bit of brown sugar sprinkled on my oatmeal but since Jan 1 I am making a healthy attempt not to eat sugar or any added sweetener and also no white flour.

Ta dah!  This is one big, giant bowl of oatmeal!

AND... I managed to eat the whole thing.  Hopefully that will keep me full for a while.

Here are some more ideas for items to add to your oatmeal or porridge:

Raisins (aka sultanas), apples, walnuts, coconut, maple syrup, craisins, blueberries, blackberries, jam

How do you porridge?

Avocado Salsa Verde - a recipe fit for the word, YUM.

I love me some easy, yummy recipes.

Here's one I invented.  It goes like this:

Peel and chop one ripe avacado.

Add about 1/3 jar of Trader Joe's Salsa Verde.

Stir and slightly mash together.

Sprinkle on a little granulated garlic.

Add fresh ground pepper.

Stir again.

Open a bag of organic tortilla chips.

Dip and repeat.

Hubby and I polished off two avocados and 2/3 of a jar of green salsa this way.  Who needs lunch?

Enjoy - Sher

Kale Salad - SUPER YUM!

This summer I have eaten more kale than ever before in my life.  Why? Well, blame it on the local farmer's market.  Bunches of green leafy kale have been available all summer long and I've bought a bunch just about every week.  I learned this recipe (tho. I've personalized it) from the farmer's market managers.

Kale salad is cold, uncooked kale thrown together with just a few other ingredients.  It's simple and fast to make.  Even if you don't THINK you like kale - try this.

Follow the photo tutorial for step by step salad yum.

I ran out of Trader Joe's organic lemons and had to buy these at the regular grocery - good grief, what a difference, these looked great on the outside but were brown-ish and kinda dry on the inside.  

Can you tell I'm not big on measuring?

This next step is great fun for the kids - even the littlest ones can help with this.  Please wash their hands first! After you're done massaging your kale salad, you will have the fringe benefit of olive oil softened hands.  WIN WIN.

I've had the kale salad in a sealed container in the fridge for about a week and it was just fine.  One cup of raw chopped kale has your entire daily requirement of Vitamins A and C.  It's also great for increasing your iron intake.  Other nutritional benefits of kale are Calcium, B6 and magnesium.  And believe it or not, that same cup of chopped kale has about 3grams of protein.

What's not to love?  By the way, I've made this a few times when I was out of almonds.  I've added pecans and/or walnuts to substitute.  I've also used sunflower seeds.  I've opted for golden raisins when I was out of the dried cranberries and used all manner of cheeses from Trader Joe's Unexpected Chedder, to other flavored cheddars or Trader Joe's cheddar gruyere and once even crumbled blue cheese.

Enjoy!

Next up - Pitt coasters!

A Little Dunk'll Dukkah

WHAT?  Just playing around with the concept of A Little Dunk will Do Ya!

Dunk is what I wanted to do - dunk with whole wheat bread in yummy stuff that is.

So, a few years ago I stopped eating added sugar and white flour.  Then for a while, I just tried to eat LESS sugar and white flour.  But it worked best when I was eating NONE.  My body doesn't need added sugar or white flour, so I'd rather feed it other things.  Plus, when I removed just these two ingredients from my diet, I lost weight, gained energy, improved my running, lowered my blood pressure and cholesterol, etc... It was ALL GOOD!

And then, I started letting lots of little sugary sweets and snacks and cookies and ice cream sneak back in.  Apparently I don't do well in moderating my desserts - it's all or nothin'

I LOVE chocolate, my son works at a bakery and bakes the yummiest things that he brings me home to sample, I get sweets cravings after every meal - so it works better if I JUST DON'T GO THERE, except on very special occasions.

That said, I do eat bread and crackers and pasta and rice but ONLY if they are of the 100% whole wheat or brown variety.  I prefer organic and non-genetically modified as well.  Because I choose to eat this way, I find just about NOTHING to buy in the regular grocery and do most of my shopping at Trader Joes, Whole Foods and the farmer's market. (TJs store brand products and Whole Food's 365 brand products do NOT contain genetically modified ingredients and their dairy products don't contain BGH - so I shop more easily at these locations).

Last week I was just craving some crusty bread to dunk in something sinfully oily.  I know - I can't believe I wanted that rather than sweets but I did.  I scored a baguette of 100% whole wheat with no added sweeteners at Whole Foods (Trader Joes only has white baguettes and that needs to change!)  So I came home with my crusty loaf and did this:

One Bowl with a slosh of oil dumped in.

A spoonful of Dukkah - yum, spicy and nutty.

A twist of salt and pepper (LOVE how well the TJs grinders work).

and later, a fresh clove of garlic minced and thrown in - tho. I did that after the first few dunks and after the photos too.

Now don't get me wrong... I could have simply finished the entire 2-foot long baguette - but I did not.  But I will admit to eating about 6" worth of the darn thing.  Boy was it yummy.  Give it a try!

Sweet N Spicy Rice

Sweet N Spicy Rice is a dish I invented when I didn't have much available in the house to produce dinner.  It was so yummy that I've made it many times now and it's a dinner favorite.

I was always taught "one starch at a time, " and that combining rice, corn and potatos was not really something that was done.  So first, let me warn you - I have broken the rules.

Here's how to make it.

First - start with these ingredients (can you tell I am a Trader Joes die hard?) - both my sister and my daughter work at TJs but not at the store where I shop : (

Ingredients:
1.  A yam.  I suppose you could you could substitute a sweet potato - I can't tell the difference
2.  Frozen corn - I use TJs organic yellow
3.  Rice - I used a TJ box of rice pilaf (often I use brown basmati or brown boil in a bag rice)
4.  TJs Spicy Jalapeno Chicken Sausage (other flavors of chicken sausage are available but this one is my hands down favorite and I am not someone who eats chicken often or even meat often)
5.  Earth Balance (other butter product may be substituted, I LOVE EB and use it for virtually all my cooking and even some baking)
6. oil (your favorite variety)

NOTE:  This time I used a rice with a flavor packet.  Often I don't.  If I don't use a flavor packet when cooking the rice, I use a vegetable bullion cube (the brand in the photo is my favorite and I use it for all multitude of cooking) and a bit of earth balance to flavor the rice once it's cooked.

The Steps.

WHILE YOU'RE COOKING:  Treat the cook~ Pour yourself a yummy glass of wine to enjoy while you're cooking.  I had a recently opened bottle of Menage a Trois red wine that did the trick just fine.  I also enjoyed a little snack of my FAVORITE cheese!

I swear this is the yummiest cheese I've ever had.  It's called Toscano - and it's dipped soaked! in Syrah - and oooohhhh the flavor, yes, it's Trader Joes.  I swear I do not get any kick back from TJs.

1.  Peel the yam. 

Cut it into bite sized chunks. 

Boil it until soft but not mushy, the chunks should hold their shape after cooking.  Drain, set aside.

2.  Cook the rice according to package directions and/or follow the "NOTE" above.  Set aside.

3.  Heat the frozen corn, I add a bit of EB, salt & pepper

4.  Slice the sausage into fat coins. 

Brown them in a skillet with 1t of oil. 

I used olive oil. 

I cook the sausage with a lid on the skillet to reduce splatter

but I lift and stir the little sausage coins often to create crispiness on all sides.

5.  Once the sausage is cooked, add in the yam, corn and rice.  Gently mix.  Voila - dinner.

For all my vegan followers (and family) consider substituting the spicy sausage with a vegan sausage or spicy tofu.

Add a salad on the side and you're ready to eat.

Here's my favorite salad: mixed greens (organic baby romaine, organic baby spinach and organic shredded cabbage) with shredded carrots, walnut pieces, chopped avacado, crumbled blue cheese and cherry tomatos.  I drizzled my favorite dressing on top: Newman's Own - Rasberry Walnut Viniagrette - YUM!

Dinner was delish - enjoy yours!