Diet Detox

I hate the term "detox."  You see plenty of products aimed at "detoxing the body" and getting rid of impurities.  They'd have you believe that our insides are cesspools filled with sludge and waste and (gag me now with this term) "toxins."  Truth?  Unless you just licked the inside of a nuclear silo, you don't have toxins.  And despite not having toxins, most of us have fully functioning livers just in case. 

Back from the tangent, I titled this entry "diet detox" because my version of this idea is "I've been eating way too much sugar/fat/crap in general and I need something healthy." 

Like on Saturday.  One of my college roommates and her husband bought us a cooking class at a local culinary store.  The class title was "Sweetshop Baking" and it lived up to its name.  Four hours of cream cheese danish, homemade doughnuts, caramel pecan rolls, cinnamon rolls, and scones.  It was awesomely sugary. 

So how do you cure a sugar hangover?  For me it was an hour long nap followed by this easy dinner, adapted from Cooking Light magazine.

Veggie Noodle Hot Pot:
(serves 4)
3 cups cauliflower, chopped into 1" chunks
2 zucchini, sliced into short sticks
1 bell pepper, sliced into sticks
2 cans low sodium chicken or veggie broth
1/2 box whole wheat linguini
1 15-oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
Olive oil

1. On a rimmed baking sheet, spread out a layer of tin foil.  Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Toss veggies in a large bowl with 4 Tablespoons olive oil, season with pepper.  I added a bit of chili powder as well.
3. Roast until browned (may need to flip veggies to get even roasting).
4. Meanwhile heat up chicken/veggie stock to boiling in a large pot and add pasta.  Cook until soft, and add chickpeas.  Last step?  Add finished roasted veggies.  Season with pepper and hot sauce if you want.

Sugar-rush cured!

Nutrition facts: 330 calories, 60 g carbs, 3 g fat, 16 g protein

Lazy + Delicious

I live one block away from a grocery store.  This is awesome.  My husband likes it too because it's a grocery/liquor store.  Kidding- sort of.  This particular store (rhymes with schmainbow) often has deals where you buy one chuck roast and get a free bag of carrots, onions, and celery.  Buy a bag of potatoes, and you've got an easy crock pot dinner.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast (serves 8)
Ingredients:
-1 chuck roast (mine was about 3.5 pounds- you can go up to 5 pounds in a crock pot)
-8-10 large carrots, cut in half
-7-9 potatoes (gold or red are best, and really, just cram as many veggies as you can into the pot)
-5ish small (2-3") yellow onions, cut in half.  Or buy 1 large onion.  Your call.
-1 can reduced fat cream of mushroom soup
-1 packet McCormick pot roast seasoning

Directions:
-Trim the visible fat from the meat. 
-Dump soup in the crock pot, add 1 cup water and seasoning.  Stir well.  Place meat in the pot and cover.  -Cook on 3-4 hours on high, or 8-9 hours on low.  I like to add the veggies (plus one more cup of water) halfway through so that they don't get too cooked. 

Oh yeah- we use this holiday bowl year-round.  It's not that I am obsessed with Christmas (ok, I am), but it's just a nice shallow bowl. 
Nutrition (per serving): 400 calories, 43 g carbs, 15 g fat, 29 g protein

From pot roast to pot pie

It's been a busy few days and it's time to catch up on recipe-posting.  My husband has wrapped up his MBA program (yay!) and announced yesterday that he'd like to start doing more of the cooking (YAY!).

For starters, here's a recipe for awesome & easy chicken pot pie.  Who needs Marie Callendar?  A better person might use a homemade gravy, fresh vegetables, and made-from-scratch pie crust.  Not this dietitian.  Save yourself time, money, and calories by doing it this way:

Chicken Pot Pie:
Ingredients:
1/2 can peas & carrots, rinsed and drained (bonus points if you find low sodium)
1 can lowfat cream of chicken soup + 2 Tbsp skim milk
1 pre-made pie crust, thawed
2 medium-sized red potatoes, cut into 1/2-1" chunks (ok to keep skin on)
1/2 cup frozen corn
2 5-ounce chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)- amount is approximate
Pepper
1 egg, lightly scrambled (optional)

Directions:
1. You'll need 2 medium-sized pans- one for boiling the potatoes, the other for boiling the chicken.  Heat water to boil in both pans.  Add potatoes to one.  Cut up raw chicken breasts into chunks about 1/2-1 inch.  Boil both chicken and potatoes separately until fully cooked (potatoes will take much longer).  Drain.  Dump in a large bowl.
2. Add chicken soup and milk and stir well.  Add potatoes.  Add corn, peas, and carrots.  Season with pepper (and onion powder if you'd like).
3. Spray the bottom of a deep pie pan with nonstick cooking spray (mine is adorable- it has a recipe for pumpkin pie written in it).  Dump in your chicken mix.
4. Roll out the thawed crust and place over pan.  Crimp the edges firmly around the pan.  Slice 4 vents in the top of the crust.  Optional- brush crush with egg for shine and browning. 
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until crust is nicely browned.  *My oven cooks fast- I had to cover the edges of the pie with foil to prevent the crust from over-browning before the insides were fully heated.  Remove foil for last 10 minutes of baking if this happens to you.

Makes six servings. Nutrition: per slice, 275 calories, 35 g carbs, 6 g fat, 15 g protein.

Enough with the squash already

Can't...get...enough...squash!  I like it plain.  I like it in soups.  I wonder if I'd like it in lasagna-form?  I found a recipe for a turkey lasagna with butternut squash and knew this would be a good recipe to try.  Since our chest freezer has about 18 pounds of ground turkey just waiting to be used, all I need to buy was noodles, sauce, spinach, and ricotta. 

Turkey lasagna with butternut squash & spinach
1/2 pound lean ground turkey
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups cubed & cooked butternut squash (I was feeling lazy and bought frozen), thawed & smushed with a fork
1/2 package frozen spinach (go for leaf, not chopped), thawed (with "juice" squeezed out)
1 cup fat free ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
9 whole wheat lasagna noodles
1 jar reduced fat Alfredo sauce

1. Cook ground turkey in a skillet; drain fat and season with Italian seasoning and pepper.
2. Meanwhile in a large pot, boil lasagna noodles until cooked.  I couldn't find whole wheat no-bake noodles.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg with ricotta.  Stir in the spinach.
4. Spray an 8x8 glass dish with olive oil nonstick spray.  Spread a few spoonfuls of sauce onto the bottom of the dish.  Lay your first three noodles down, cutting off any extra length. 
5. Spread ground turkey across noodles; ladel a few spoonfuls of sauce on top.
6. Add another layer of noodles and trim as needed.  Layer butternut squash, followed by spinach and ricotta mixture. 
7. Top with a final layer of noodles, add sauce, and sprinkle with cheese. 
8. Spray a piece of tin foil with olive oil cooking spray and cover the dish.  Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Take off the foil cover and cook for another 10-15 minutes, or until slightly browned and bubbly.  Let cool for 15 minutes before cutting and serving. 

This makes 9 servings.  Once the lasagna is completely cooled, it's easy to individually wrap the squares and freeze for later.  Nutrition facts: 240 calories, 27 g carbs, 6 g fat, 15 g protein. 

It's okay to veer away from the traditional lasagna.  Especially if you love squash. 

Flavor of the month

I realized today that I definitely have a favorite fall scent:

After a weekend of relying way too much on Lean Cuisines (and a bowl of chili from Keys Cafe...mmm...), tonight's menu includes steak fajitas with red & green peppers, onion, on whole wheat tortillas.  And maybe some caramel apples. 

Class Time: Nutrition 101

You’ve maybe seen by now that I really push fiber.  Why?  What exactly is it?  What does it do in the body?

Think of a puzzle: a child’s 4-piece puzzle is really easy to take apart and is done in seconds.  This is how our body views sugar and simple carbohydrates- white bread, white rice, white pasta, chips, pretzels, cookies, bagels, etc.

Now a more complex 500-piece puzzle (the kind that my Grandma works on for weeks) would require a longer amount of time to take apart.  Same goes for complex carbohydrates: beans (legumes), “starchy” vegetables (corn, squash, carrots, etc), and whole grain breads and cereal products.  Part of what makes them “complex” is that they contain fiber.

A kernel of grain has three components: bran, wrapped around the outside, germ (nutrition nugget for the growing wheat seed itself), and endosperm.  Emily Levenson has a great diagram on her blog.  When typical flour is processed, the bran and germ are removed, and the plain endosperm is ground up.  You might have noticed that on your sack of flour at home it says “enriched”- it’s a red flag that so many nutrients are lost in the processing step that they have to add back vitamins such as niacin and riboflavin.  When you choose whole grain flour and whole grain products, they have all the parts of the grain ground up.

Back to fiber- fiber is amazing.  Constipated?  Try fiber.  Loose stools?  Try fiber.  Fiber acts in two ways: it’s very “grabby” and as it moved through your gut, it scrapes off all the dead gunk that accumulates in the lining of your intestines.  It also mixes with water in your gut to form a gel to keep things moving smoothly.  So not only does fiber make you a super pooper, but because it takes longer to digest, it keeps you feeling fuller for longer.  Win-win!

Busy in the kitchen

Another beautiful fall weekend in Minnesota.  I can legitimately say that I did help my husband with the yardwork.  We only have one rake, so I did the next best thing- mow over the leaves and shred 'em!  I was also feeling culinary creativity yesterday.

Seeing that we still have about 5 pounds of apples, I decided to make an apple cake for breakfast.  When I announced that, my husband said "will it have frosting?"  As much as I love frosting, I cannot bring myself to serve it at breakfast-time.  Here's the recipe I created:

Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Cake:
Ingredients
4 apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour + 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 eggs
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional- I went without)
2 teaspoons each cinnamon + sugar mixed in a small bowl
Directions:

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl.  In a larger bowl, beat eggs and sugar for 2 minutes.  Stir in applesauce and vanilla.  Gradually stir in dry ingredients.  Fold in apples and walnuts.  Pour in an 8" round pan.  Sprinkle cinnamon/sugar mixture on top and bake for approximately 35 minutes at 350 degrees.  

Nutrition (makes 10 slices): 227 calories, 4 g protein, 3 g fiber.

Ta-da!  Delicious breakfast.  Now onto lunch.  On Sundays, our m.o. is to make a big batch of something, and then have the leftovers for lunch for the first half of the week.  I decided on white chili and whole wheat beer bread.  Easy comfort food.   

I think I might need a better quality camera- none of these pictures make the food look very good!