Approachable Healthy Eating

I don't believe in all or nothing health. I believe this type of thinking holds us back from potentially eating far better than we currently are. That's the whole purpose of this blog, to help highlight how we can eat better without going to extremes.

To be clear, I highly admire those who are able to invest time, energy, and money in what I have (possibly inaccurately) labeled as extreme healthy eating.  I think that if you have the interest and can afford to do so it's a positive thing.

But for the rest of us, those of us who desire to feed our families well but feel overwhelmed by the prospect of everything homemade, hard-to-pronounce-foods type of healthy eating, I propose a more middle-of-the-road, improving-by-degrees kind of healthy eating.

Case in point:

Cheesy Broccoli Rice-a-Roni

I could have added chicken, I could have just eaten the rice plain.  Instead, in my efforts towards healthier eating, I added in a ton of broccoli.  And you know what?  It tastes amazing!  :D

Here's what I did:

1.  Washed and trimmed about a pound of broccoli  (no need to be precise.)

2.  Cooked the Cheesy Broccoli Rice-a-Roni according to the box

3.  Added the broccoli to the rice during the last five minutes of cooking time  (lid on so it could steam)

It's that simple!  Let me know if you have any other quick and easy healthy (or rather, healthier) recipes.

Happy Cooking!

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

I love soup season!  I feel like it is so much easier to eat healthy when you can makes soups loaded with vegetables.  And aren't they beautiful too?  I love all the colors.  This soup turned out wonderful.  I took it to a church party and I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed that it got all eaten up.  (I really wanted some leftovers; soups make the best leftovers in my opinion.)

The recipe can be found here: http://luluthebaker.blogspot.com/2011/09/cheesy-vegetable-chowder.html?m=1

Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

I love soup season!  I feel like it is so much easier to eat healthy when you can makes soups loaded with vegetables.  And aren't they beautiful too?  I love all the colors.  This soup turned out wonderful.  I took it to a church party and I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed that it got all eaten up.  (I really wanted some leftovers; soups make the best leftovers in my opinion.)

The recipe can be found here: http://luluthebaker.blogspot.com/2011/09/cheesy-vegetable-chowder.html?m=1

Back on the wagon!

So... this summer wasn't too good to me when it came to healthy eating and weight management.  Granted, I'm supposed to be gaining weight now that I'm pregnant, but I'm pretty sure I'm gaining more than I should be each week.  In light of this, I have rediscovered my motivation to eat better and start exercising again!

As I've mentioned on this blog before, eating well is all relative, so please don't scoff if you consider my "healthy" meals to be far below your standard.  I'm just trying to make progress, however small and steady it may be.  :)  My goals are pretty simple:  more vegetables and less meat generally, as well as more variety and more moderation in our servings.

Since I don't have any particular meals to post about from recently, I figured I would share a little bit about my newest meal planning efforts.  I used to plan around the type of meat we were having each night of the week.  (Beef, chicken, pork, etc.)  But as I am attempting to decrease our meat consumption, and at the very least not have it be the main event in our meals, I decided to mix things up.

In the Word of Wisdom it says, "All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life"  (D&C 89:14). So I thought we would try framing our meals around different types of grain.  Here's how our weekly themes turned out:

Monday:     Leftovers
Tuesday:    Tortilla
Wednesday:  Pizza Night
Thursday:  Bread
Friday:     Date Night
Saturday:  Beans/Rice
Sunday:   Pasta

I make it pretty easy on myself, only having four nights a week that I have to cook, since we have leftovers, pizza, and date nights.  (And honestly, I think it ends up being even less the four times per week since we end up having dinner with family or so much food in the fridge that we have more than one leftovers night per week.)

After I decided on the themes, I took my list of go-to meals and divided them into these different themes.  I'll share my lists, but please forgive any mistakes since I'm just copying and pasting out of my Evernote account.  If any of these meals sound good to you and you'd like to see a picture or get the recipe, just let me know!  (Feel free to ignore the asterisks; they just let me know what my husband prefers to eat.)

 Pasta

Spaghetti
**Alfredo
Pesto
Lasagna
Stuffed shells
*Mac & cheese
**Tuna casserole
Chicken noodle soup
Minestrone

Dressed up Mac and cheese

*Carbonara

Tortilla
Chicken burritos
*Enchiladas
?Turkey casserole
Taco soup
Fajitas
**Meatless burritos
Quesadillas
Pitas
Travelling Tacos

Beans/rice
**Cowboy beans
*Stir-fry
*Chicken curry
**Chili
Soup
**stew
Spanish rice bake
Risotto
Lentil soup
Hawaiian Haystacks
Ham fried rice

Bread
Panini's
Italian chicken sandwich
Zuppa Toscana
Meatball sub
Soup/stew
*Burgers
Salad entrée
Homemade pizza
**Frittata
**Veggie burger
Grown-up grilled cheese
*Vegetable chowder
*Tomato soup (special)
**Cheese and broccoli soup
*Bisquick bake

*Tomato basil soup

At this point it was super easy to just file them into slots during the week.  The first time I did this I ended up planning about five weeks in advance since it was so simple.  Here's how it turned out:

Saturday:  ward function

Sunday:  Sundried Tomato Ravioli 

Monday:  leftovers     
Tuesday:  Gyros
Wednesday:  Pizza
Thursday:  Chicken Fiesta Salad
Friday:  Date Night       

Saturday:  Spanish Rice Bake       

Sunday:  Lasagna       

Monday: leftovers       

Tuesday:  Enchiladas       

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Paninis       

Friday:  date night       

Saturday:  Stirfry       

Sunday:  Minestrone 

Monday:  leftovers       

Tuesday:   Beef and Bean Tortilla Bak

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Grown up Grilled Cheese       

Friday:  date night       

Saturday:  Southwestern Bean Skillet       

Sunday:  Stuffed Shells       

Monday:  leftovers       

Tuesday:  Taco Soup       

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Meatball Sub       

Friday:  date night       

Saturday:  Risotto       

Sunday: Macaroni and Cheese       

Monday:  leftovers       

Tuesday:  Chicken Burritos       

Wednesday:  pizza       

Thursday:  Vegetable Chowder       

Friday:  date night

Saturday:  Chicken Curry     

   

Now when I go shopping for the week, I just look at the upcoming meals and buy all the ingredients I'll need for those recipes.  I really enjoy meal planning a lot more this way.  I try to attempt at least one new meal per week, some weeks it turns out to be more just because I get so excited about new recipes.  The first new recipe I tried this fall was homemade gyros.  They were a great success!  Definitely going onto my go-to list.  ;)

Breakfast Ideas

Here are some pictures of ways we like to mix things up for breakfast.  Enjoy!

Soups

Soup is a great way to get lots of vegetables in a meal. They're usually low cost and low calories too while still being very filling and feeding a crowd. Two of my favorites are chicken noodle soup and creamy vegetable soup.

Carrots dipped in ranch dressing

Some of the most important things you can do to eat healthier come in the form of little mini-habits. In our house we are trying to get used to eating healthier snacks like this again. If its the norm in your house to eat carrots instead of chips or candy, just think of the relative health benefits! Just a thought... ;). (And if you want to go the extra mile, you could dip them in hummus or just eat them plain!)

The Healthy Haul

I went to the store on Monday and I decided to try an experiment when I got home with my food.  I divided up my haul into food groups and took a picture of each group.  The idea was to see 1) if I was buying mostly in the grains, fruits, veggies, and beans groups, and 2) if there were very many/any items that didn't exactly fit in any group.  If you find that you have a lot of those types of items, those are the things to stop buying.  Also, as mentioned in the previous post, I spent a lot of time in the grocery store reading labels and attempting to buy mostly items with a very short if not one item ingredient list.  Here is how it turned out:

Dairy

We try to eat as little meat as possible.  When we do have meat, I prefer chicken.

Meat

As far as dairy is concerned, I'm not sure how I feel yet.  I don't know if it's good or bad for you, but I know that it helps us to eat less meat, so for now it is a staple in our house.

Grains

When I buy grains, I look for whole grains whenever possible, and I strive for a variety of different kinds.  This week we tried quinoa and couscous for the first time!  They were a hit.  :)

Vegetables

Veggies are a huge part of a healthy diet.  This group actually is quite small because I already had a lot of vegetables left at home.  Fresh is best, but we aren't adverse to canned or frozen either.  We especially try to make sure to have dark green vegetables, because those tend to be the most difficult to fit into your diet.

Fruit

 Fruit is similar to veggies in terms of us being fine with dried, canned, or frozen.  The dried fruit is great because it lasts a long time and its great on the go.  Fruit, though, is easy for us to eat, so we try to reserve it for breakfast, snacks, and as a treat after dinner.

Nuts and Beans

Beans and Nuts are my new favorite semi-made-up food group.  Really they belong in the meat or protein group, but I have chosen to see them as a group of their own which makes me be more conscientious about selecting them.  What you see in this picture is several new items that I'm trying out this week.  What you don't see is that our main bean staple is a whole pantry full of canned beans.  I had so many that I didn't have to restock yet.  (Seeds are also in this group, but the only seed we've tried are sunflower seeds.)



So, there you have it!  Please note that there isn't anything too foreign or weird.  We aren't perfect, but we eat healthy enough without having to branch out into unfamiliar territory.  This is our version of eating healthy and this is my current version of a healthy haul.  :D

Mediterranean Sandwich and Kid's Snacks

A few days ago we tried a special attempt to eat a healthy lunch. This was the result. It's a huge struggle to get my girls to eat vegetables so we tried some carrot "buttons" this time around. It seemed to be a hit. My three-year-old ate a lot more than she normally would, and without ranch too! She also ate crackers, olives, and grapes, and it filled her up quite nicely. I think sometimes I forget that I don't always have to feed my kids what I would deem as a meal. Sometimes a good collection of healthy snacks can do the trick. :)

For my lunch, I attempted to make up a different kind of sandwich using leftovers I had in my fridge. I toasted some whole wheat bread, spread on a generous amount of hummus, broke up some olives, cut up some sun-dried tomatoes, and julienned some fresh basil to put on top.

It was really just an experiment...

But, to my surprise and delight, it was delicious! All those earthy Mediterranean flavors melded very well. I'm definitely making it again!

Ingredient Lists and tidbit or two

I watched an excellent documentary last night called "Hungry for Change." It made me excited about healthy eating again. Sometimes watching documentaries like that can be overwhelming, feeling like you have to reach the ideal diet all at once. But for me, they're almost always motivational as well.

Also, sometimes it's frustrating to get the end of a documentary and find out they're just trying to sell you a juicer. Nonetheless, I believe that this documentary contained a lot of truth. One of the things that this movie inspired me to do was to begin looking at the ingredients lists on my food items.

There are a few simple rules. First, the fewer ingredients on the list, the better the food is for you. Second, you want to be able to recognize all of the ingredients. If there is a big long list of scientific sounding ingredients, stay away!

I wanted to share a couple of our favorite healthy breakfast foods. The first, is a great alternative to regular yogurt. We always have on hand a great big tub of plain nonfat Greek yogurt. We also try to have a variety of berries in the freezer and some honey in the pantry. Defrost the berries, break them up a little, and mix in some Greek yogurt and honey. It's delicious, and you know exactly what's in it. Greek yogurt is said to be better than normal yogurt. (I won't pretend to know why... But I do know that it tastes a lot better!) And honey is supposed to be a very healthy sugar. Plus, you get to control how sweet you want it to be.

One last idea, is for when you need a quick snack. We toast up a little whole-wheat bread, spread on some peanut butter, and sprinkle on the raisins. Healthy, filling, and delicious!

Soup and Salad

So here's a tidbit of an idea that I'm trying right now for the first time: put down a layer of salad in your bowl before you serve up your soup, stir it in, and enjoy! This adds low- calorie, high nutrition bulk to your meal, helping you to eat less of the higher calorie soup. I think this is a brilliant idea, (I can say that because its not my own,) because if you have a salad on the side you feel the need to add dressing. If you have salad alone it can be dissatisfying. And let's be honest: more often than not we skip the salad and go straight for the more appetizing soup. Anyway... Just a thought!