Healthy banana pancakes

One of my pledge sisters, Sara, has a great food blog and she posts recipes to instagram every day. Good thing I was on it this morning (sorry Jaren, I will try to go on more often) because I found a recipe I needed to replicate right away. I adjusted a tiny bit and made a larger batch. They are so good. So so so good!

These are super healthy and packed with protein from the cottage cheese, egg whites, and greek yogurt. Plus the oatmeal instead of flour is great because it's a super food!

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana

3/4 cup egg whites

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup nonfat cottage

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

2 Splenda 

Directions

1. Blend everything! Love me my vitamix. Of course I didn't think to take picture of the ingredients or of the batter until it was almost finished. But here is what it looked like:

2. I used a small skillet and did one pancake at a time. That recipe made about 6 pancakes. I used a little canola oil and then pam spray, poured batter into medium high skillet (I didn't measure, just so that it covered), and flipped when it bubbled.

I also added some cinnamon, because more cinnamon is almost always good. 

These were so good that Charlie was literally eating them off the plate I kept by the stove while I was still cooking the rest. No even stack - since some had these bites taken out of them!


I asked him to keep me some so he just took a full one off and ate the rest. Didn't feel like smiling, maybe next time he will when he sees I posted these pics of him on the blog :-)

He said they taste more like crepes than pancakes. I grew up eating blintzes (crepes) and not pancakes. In fact, I don't really love pancakes because I feel like you need so much syrup to make them taste good. These were super moist and needed no syrup at all.

Do you all like Charlie's hair? He shaved it the other day and I love it. Story on that coming in a few weeks.

And just because, here is a shirt that I should no longer be wearing but did anyway. Look how the white one does not even come close to covering my belly. I guess at 9 months pregnant I shouldn't attempt non maternity clothes, whoops!

Enjoy the pancakes/crepes, guilt free, and without even needing syrup on top :-)

"Leftovers" Healthy Fried Rice

Having a few leftovers on hand and a broken microwave leads to creative cooking. We had a bunch of brown rice left over, some crock pot chicken thighs, and peas and corn. So I decided to make leftover fried rice out of it.

This is going to be a very rough "recipe" since I just tossed things together.

I labeled this healthy because I used brown rice, and much less oil than normal fried rice! I would normally use breast but we had the leftover thighs that I needed to use.

Ingredients:
leftovers!
We had:
-brown rice (could be white but then this would be less of a healthy fried rice). Probably had about 3 cups of cooked brown rice
-veggies - we had corn and peas, but you can add whatever! toss in onion, broccoli, carrot, etc.
-cooked chicken  - we had about 2.5 thighs left over, and I shredded it up with a fork
-1/4 cup of egg white
-olive oil, pam spray, and soy sauce or teriyaki sauce

1. Heat up some olive oil (about 2 tbs) in a sauce pan, and add in all the ingredients except the sauce and egg. Stir around until it is warmed through and a little crispy, about 3-5 minutes on medium high.
2. Push the rice etc to the sides of the pan, and spray some pam or non stick spray in the middle. Add in the egg white and let it cook for about 3 minutes. Break it up with a wooden spoon and stir it all in.
3. Add whatever sauce you want - you can even add some sriracha. I wanted to use up some soy sauce so I added some honey to sweeten and thicken it up (basically teriyaki is soy sauce and sugar).

Enjoy your very quick leftover lunch that didn't need a microwave!

So you found a 2.5 pound bag of spinach in your fridge that's about to expire....don't fret!

Whoopsies! I meant to post this yesterday through the blogger app but it just saved as a draft.

Have you ever bought a bunch of produce, and a week later realized you have exactly 1.4 days left of use out of it? If you haven't, stop being my friend. Just stop, you are too perfect. 

I REALLLLLLLY try to make an effort to eat what I have and buy what I need, but every once in a while, I get super excited at the 13 pounds of snap peas and mushrooms at costco and what can I say? I go a little overboard. 

I have a green smoothie for lunch just about every day.

This was the first thing I did when I got back from Italy. Charlie promptly responded with "sweetie if you want I can just cut the grass and you can have it for free". Whatever, I love them, and I think they taste fruity and delicious.

Anyway, this week, I may or may not have found 2.5 pound bag of spinach in my fridge. Unopened. Expiring relatively soon. Two Point Five Pounds. Is this real?

Well, I can't have enough green smoothies to finish that off, so I decided to make "sag aloo" - an Indian dish for spinach and potatoes. Except I didn't use potatoes. So I made sag. I think. Or aloo. Whichever one means spinach.

Our players:

I sauteed a small/medium onion in some olive oil and salt, added the ginger, a teaspoon of each spice, and then about a pound of the spinach in batches. I didn't measure, but it was about half the bag, or less than half the bag. A lot of spinach - use your judgement, and if you don't want to, use a pound. As I added in the spinach I stirred it to get it "wet" with the oil, and then used my immersion blender to chop it up.

Add in more spinach, and do it again.

My pound of spinach significantly shrunk down to a size I could fathom a family of 4 eating.

Funny side story about my ginger:


I buy a hand of ginger, and I chop it up like shown above, and keep it in the freezer. I mostly use it in my smoothies but sometimes add it to whatever. Well, a couple of weekends ago I was sewing a valance for upstairs at my parents' house and my mom decided to make a smoothie. Unfrotunately, she thought my ginger was bananas, and had a not-so-great experience with ginger. Was pretty funny though.

My version of "sag aloo' minus the "aloo" is great alone, with rice, topped over salmon, or even used as a "relish" for burgers.






Ingredients:
-1 chopped onion, sauteed in olive oil
-1/2 inch of minced fresh ginger
-1 pound of spinach
-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
-1/2 teaspoon turmeric
-1 teaspoon cumin
-1 teaspoon garam masala
-1/2 teaspoon coriander

You can also add a can of chopped tomatoes to this, or some red kidney beans, or lentils. Yummmmm. You can also toss some chicken in it if you wanna please your man (well my man, who thinks no meal is complete without chicken).

Anyway, I am off to get an easy night. Charlie is finally off midnight shift and I get to watch tv in bed with him. A perfect Friday night!

Shabbat Shalom Y'all!

PS - the challah was so good tonight! Recipe soon.

Turkey Quinoa Meatloaf

Remember this post, which was a super delayed food catch up? Well hey guess what!? I am going to catch up!

When I visited Eden in March we had a cooking spree and my two favorites were the turkey quinoa meatloaf, and the tamale pie.

Below is the turkey quinoa meat loaf recipe (tamale pie another day).

Ingredients:

-1 (20 ounce) package of lean or extra lean ground turkey (or extra lean ground beef)

-1.5 cups of cooked quinoa

-1 egg

-1 red pepper, chopped small

-1/2 package of sliced white mushrooms, chopped small

-1 medium onion, chopped

-1 tablespoon of minced garlic

-olive oil, to sautee veggies

-1.5 tablespoon of Worcester sauce

-1 tbs tomato paste

-2 tablespoons of brown sugar

-optional – other veggies (frozen would be just fine) – corn, peas, spinach, chopped broccoli etc

Preheat oven to 350
1. If you haven’t already, cook your quinoa according to package directions (I always make a big batch and use it for various recipes throughout the week. This recipe calls for 1.5 cups cooked)

2. Coat pan with olive oil, and cook onions, mushrooms, and garlic with some salt for about 10 minutes over medium

3. When the mushroom mixture is done, mix it with the red pepper, turkey, ½ tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbs brown sugar, 1 tbs tomato paste, and cooked quinoa in a large bowl.  Add any other veggies you want to add. Form into a loaf pan

4. Mix 1 tbs remaining brown sugar, 1 tbs remaining Worcestershire sauce, and some water (about ½ tablespoon), and top the loaf with glaze

5. Bake for 50 minutes. Let it rest for at least a half hour before slicing.

This is one of those recipes that's great the next day because it firms up and you can slice it better. Also, Someone told me that they have done this but only par-cooked the quinoa, to get a more crunchy texture. Haven't tried it yet.

Enjoy this super healthy and delicious recipe!

Shredded Brussel Sprout Salad With Mandarins, Cranberries, and Almonds

I've been asked for Brussel Sprouts recipes 3 times in about 2 weeks so decided to post this, even though I have about 238473874 things to catch up on. Like that I am posting from Italy, sitting on a couch next to my hubby :-)

My little sis from DG, Caroline, posted a shredded Brussel Sprout salad on her blog a while ago, and I have been making them since. One of my go to salads is my mom's apple cider "slaw" with dill and pine nuts (it gets gobbled up every time I make it). I figured, Brussel Sprouts are just little cabbages, so why not? I love the salad, but not as much as I love roasted Brussel Sprouts, or these yummy ones. It's a close second though!

Ingredients:

-about 30 brussel sprouts, run through the food processor's shredder/grater thing, not in the bowl with the blade (or you can shred them with a knife if you want to cry for an hour), or buy pre-shredded (trader jos baby!)

-1/2 cup of dried cranberries

-1/2 cup of toasted nuts (almonds, pine nuts, walnuts)

-1/2 cup of canned mandarin oranges

- lemon dressing, recipe below (or you can use store bought raspberry vinagraite or whatever you want)

FYI, that's our wedding pattern, I love it :-) Wanted something casual or fancy. And I think it's pretty timeless. 

Moving on.

Toss everything together with the following:

-Juice of 2 lemons

-1 tablespoon of sugar or equivalent of splenda (or 1 tablespoon of honey/agave etc)

-2 teaspoons of minced garlic

-1/4 cup of olive oil

You can really use any acid instead of the lemon (apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar would be great choices). You could also use pomegranate seeds instead of the cranberries! Hmmmm I want to make that next.

Ciao to all!

Green smoothie - weight loss trick

Disclaimer! Does not taste green! Even Charlie drank one yesterday!!!!



Hello. Do you love my no make up puffy eyed look? Gotta love allergy season.

On a non-sarcastic note do you like my pink polka dot straw???? Aunt Nancy got them for me from Sur La Table!

Every day I've been eating one of these for lunch. They're always a little different. For example, I used canned pineapple today but yesterday I used a tropical frozen fruit mix from Costco. You can really use anything.

Basic Recipe:
-1 cup of canned pineapple chunks with juice (not syrups) *note* you can really use 1 cup of frozen, canned, or fresh fruit of any kind.
-1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk or coconut milk (the carton not the can)
-1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt (greek or regular)
-1 frozen banana, cut into slices (tip, peel and slice your bananas before freezing them in ziplock bags)
-2 cups fresh spinach

Directions:
1. Blend everything.
2. Put in a cute straw
3. Drink!

Sometimes I'll add a tbs or so of chia seeds. Today I didn't.

Enjoy!


(ps - that's the same picture, I just took out my make-up-less puffy eyed face!)

Some wedding preparations

We are taking dance lessons. Of course Charlie wants to learn how to throw me in the air. We settled for dirty dancing at the end of the lesson.

I'm also losing weight. How, you ask? Well, I don't eat breakfast, and I have a green smoothie (will post recipe next) for lunch, and then a big dinner. Yes, I know, you're not supposed to do that, I have it opposite. I've tried that. Doesn't work for me. But I've lost weight! Woooo! 

In the mail today was my PJ library book of the month "Room for the baby". I think PJ Library is giving me a hint.

Look what Birdie "scent" me!!!! She's the best, miss you and baby!

Oh what's that? a scentsy BRICK the size of my computer. In love.

Mom's "meat" turkey sauce

Craving: a healthy "meat sauce"

My mom is a great cook. She's really the reason I know how to cook. My whole life my parents were always diet conscious. Not diet as in, "I'm on a diet" but diet as in, "we eat a healthy and balanced diet."

I've spoken before that we always, always, always have a few vegetables and salads with meals, and rarely have red meat. Add to that the fact that my dad doesn't eat cheese - the true story is that when he was a kid his parents took him to a cheese factory and it stunk so bad, he's never been able to eat cheese. He is weird about it - if something is too "creamy" but doesn't actually have cheese, he still can't handle it, but he can have certain types of cheese like if ricotta is in a pastry, or the rolls at Red Lobster. Until he KNEW that there was cheese in them, he would gobble them up. Now he knows and he can't do it anymore.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, my dad doesn't eat cheese, so we never had that added fat in our diets. Now I am a cheese lover and I have found that if I keep good quality fatty cheeses, I can satisfy a craving with one bite and move on.

What was I talking about..????? Oh yeah, healthy cooking....mom's "meat" sauce. Sheesh, sorry for the digression!

Well, mom would always make these healthy dishes. Before I went to college she decided I should know how to make her sauce, and only then did I realize it was lean ground turkey, and not beef! I have since added a couple ingredients to this recipe that I think make it even meatier! Red wine and worcester sauce.  The next time I make it, I am going to soak some dehydrated shitakes, and then grind them up in my food processor and add them in. I have heard this gives it great meaty flavor, without making it taste like mushrooms actually!

Okay so this recipe was made back in Alabama at Sarah's house (Charlie's sister).

Ingredients:
-about 2-2.5 pounds of lean or extra lean (I used a combination) ground turkey.
*note: lean is 97% fat free, extra lean is 99% fat free. You can use 93% fat free if you want but I have really found that the lean and extra lean work great.*
-olive oil (regular vegetable oil is fine for this recipe though)
-1 large onion, or 2 small onions

-2 tsp minced garlic

-salt and pepper to season
-1 big jar of tomato sauce
-1/3 cup red wine
-1.5 tbs worcester sauce
-1 tbs ketchup



Directions:
1. Chop your onion and sautee it on medium heat. Add salt to cover it. Then add garlic.



2. Once your onion has softened significantly (about 5 minutes), add the turkey. Break up the turkey with a wooden spoon so it cooks up ground.


*Most recipes say to make sure that the turkey cooks all the way through before adding sauce. I have NEVER done it like this. I cook this for so long to let the flavors meld that I know the turkey is cooked through.*

3. Add the worcester sauce, then the jar of tomato sauce right after all the turkey is broken up, mix it all in together.







4. Add ketchup and wine. Keep stirring until it all is incorporated well together.


5. Cook it for about an hour on low, mixing every so often.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product. I think we ate it all!

Serve over pasta, by itself, with beans, or however you want! In college I used to make big batches and freeze them.

Peanut-Teriyaki Green Beans

Craving: A twist on regular green beans!

This recipe is yummy and can be made with fresh, frozen, or canned green beans (although I really recommend fresh or frozen).

You can add spice to it with some sriracha or your favorite heat-provider (cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, etc). I eliminated this because someone I was eating with did not eat spicy food.

Ingredients (approximations, I never measure exactly when cooking)


1 pound fresh or frozen green beans
2 tbs creamy peanut butter (low fat okay)
2 cups teriyaki sauce
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tbs sesame seeds (black or white or combination)
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp minced garlic (I forgot to photograph this)
sriracha to your taste
1 tbs sesame oil to top
peanuts to top (optional)

Directions:
1. Steam or boil your green beans. (Steaming is better from a nutritional standpoint).
**Tip**: You can put them in a microwavable dish and seal with plastic wrap to "steam" the beans. This retains more nutrients than boiling.
Drain your beans and rinse with cold water to shock them.


2. Spoon peanut butter into a bowl and stir in the teriyaki sauce and water. Add the rest of the ingredients except sesame oil and peanuts. Stir together.


3. Put the beans in a pot and cover with the sauce, cook on medium-high for 10 minutes so the sauce thickens and sticks to the beans.

4. Top with sesame oil and peanuts and stir together. Serve and enjoy!

I made this recipe up and we had some extra sauce to green bean ratio when I made it, so adjusted it for this recipe. However, the extra sauce would have been really good with rice or noodles, or even to marinade chicken!

A hotel room meal

Cravings: a real meal, not a sandwich! When you're living in a hotel room, most of your meals are sandwiches. Ughhhhh.

Disclaimer: I wrote this about 5 days ago but could not post it due to no internet access.

These posts are going to be very all over the place since so much has happened and my connection is so spotty. I have many pictures and do not remember the order of everything, especially since half are on my camera and half are on my iphone!

What I do know is that last Friday I decided to make chicken in the microwave. Charlie's flight was grilling but we wanted to go see The Avengers (base movie theater was showing it), so we didn't have time to grill. The result was mediocre, but mostly due to lack of seasoning. The chicken actually cooked decently.

I bought a package of chicken "tenders" - basically breast strips w/o fat or skin chopped into thinner slices.

The recipe can be found here.

Along with my microwave chicken, I had a salad. 

Charlie made the point that I don't have to buy all of my salad ingredients and prepare them myself, but that we live in a country where they actually do that for you. Wow, I have been overworking myself! I bought one of those salads that has all the ingredients in little pouches, and it was delicious! All I needed was a fork and bowl. And my mouth.

Look everyone - I need my scissors, I am so happy I brought them! (For other things you may need when living in a hotel room, please reference this post).

I also had a brown rice microwavable packet. You literally just open the container and microwave for one minute. I usually buy these at trader jos or costco, but found these at the commissary and they were great as well.

I hope if you are living in a hotel room, that this meal has given you some inspiration to eat something more than a sandwich! It can be done :-)

Mom's spinach/strawberry salad

Craving: Mom's spinach salad, of course

My mom is such a creative cook. In Israel you have very creative ideas for vegetable dishes and salads, and salad is basically served with EVERY meal. We would always have about 4 creative veggie dishes at a table. I get so upset with pot lucks that are all pasta based. Let's get creative people! It's not too difficult to make a side dish that is nutritious, creative, and delicious.

 A typical dinner at my house growing up was a fish or chicken, a whole grain, and let's say, 3 veggie side dishes. 

These are examples of dishes we had every night for dinner:

-sauteed green beans with spicy sauce

-broiled broccoli with soy sauce

-apple cider cabbage slaw with toasted pine nuts

-watermelon, feta, and mint salad with raspberry vinaigrette

-red cabbage slaw with pineapple

-steamed sweet carrots with sesame seeds

-"waldorf" salad - aka apple, celery, walnuts, pineapple

-roasted beets with balsamic vinegar

-eggplant with tahini sauce

-sweet potatoes stuffed with roasted grapes and goat cheese, topped with honey

and many more! Please be creative with your veggies, it's not that difficult.

This weekend Charlie has some of his best friends in town visiting for a bachelor party weekend. One of his best friends, Anthony, is having a baby in August, so he wanted to do the weekend before then. I cooked up a bunch of food for them and decided to make some healthy stuff as well (and then I ate a burger myself!).

I made two salads, both of which were delicious. When you have 4 big guys and you have one burger left but you finish a salad, you know it's just that good!

I forgot to snap a picture until we had already devoured some of it, but it still looks okay:


Here is her recipe for strawberry spinach salad:

Ingredients:
-1/2 lb spinach leaves
-1/2 pint of strawberries, sliced
-1/2 cup (i just eyeballed this and used handfsuls) of candied pecans
-2 tbs sugar (you can use splenda)
-2 tbs white vinegar
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-2 tsp sesame seeds
-1 tsp poppy seeds
-1/4 medium onion, grated (you can chop it finely)
-1/4 tsp paprika (optional)

Directions:
1. wash the spinach and mix with the strawberries.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients except the oil. Slowly whisk the oil in so it emulsifies.
3. Mix the dressing into the spinach/strawberry mix, and toss with the pecans.

Enjoy!


Sidenote: do you have an ingredient that you always seem to buy, and then one day you find you have 4 open versions of it? One day my mom and I found like 4 bottles of white vinegar in her house!

Well, yesterday my mom went to fresh and easy and asked if I needed anything and I told her hamburger meat (for the guys...and me), and candied walnuts. Well after I made the salad, I went to put the walnuts in the pantry and found three packets! Woops. Katy is over and I just had her take a picture, in front of my finished wreaths!




Questions:
1. What creative foods will you challenge yourself to make this week?
2. Is there a food you always tend to overbuy?