new spin on the salad…

It may be slightly cliché, but usually I find myself eating a giant salad around dinner time, not just because it’s easy and fast to prepare, but because it’s a really good chance to sneak in some veggies. You may think that eating vegetables comes naturally to a dietitian, but I definitely have to be intentional about working them into my meals. 

And salads can certainly be more refined than the icky iceberg lettuce and dried out carrot shreds that compose most packaged mixes. I have found this spiralizer super helpful in making my salads a little more creative. The above salad contains:

• spiralized cucumber
• spiralized sweet potato (roasted in olive oil and dijon mustard at 400 for 15-20 minutes)
• candied almonds (slice almonds and heat in a frying pan with a slight sprinkling of sugar)
• feta cheese
• spring mix

Tahini is a nutrient packed and makes a great salad topper. I like it mixed with a little balsamic vinegar or BBQ sauce (weird, I know but so good). I also will often top my salads with hummus. I find that eating so many green things at once is both energizing (hate eating heavy meals and then going to bed a couple hours later) and definitely filling.

If you find that salads just don’t fill you up, add some extra protein in the form of nuts, seeds, cheese, or an egg.

Also a new soup recipe for you (adapted from here).

Black Bean and Quinoa Soup

• 1 T olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced small
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 large or 2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can tomatoes
• 3-4 cups homemade vegetable or chicken stock
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in heavy soup pot, add diced onion and cook over medium heat for 6-8 minutes, or until onions are just starting to brown.  Add minced garlic, chili powder, and fresh-ground black pepper and saute 1-2 minutes more or until spices are becoming fragrant. Add cubed sweet potatoes, black beans, and stock. Simmer on low-medium heat for 25-30 minutes or until sweet potatoes are cooked.

And wouldn’t you figure…after a crazy weekend of snow traveling and skiing, it was 60 degrees today, and I ran a lovely 4 miles outside in the sunshine in shorts. Crazy winter, but I’m not complaining.

Fave ways to eat vegetables??

 

p.s. post on wheat grass in the works…

a good start to 2012…

Are you used to writing that on everything yet? It takes me a while to correctly date everything. Lately, I’ve been getting the year right but the month wrong. Clearly, I want it to still be December.

The holidays flew by but were an enjoyable time of eating good food and spending time with family and friends, including my favorite twin sister.

And someone super awesome knows my organizational obsession pretty well and got me these fantastic highlighters and post-it notes to make work more fun. Best gift ever.

Our family makes Swedish cardamom bread every year, and it’s wonderful with my favorite coffee. Such a good Asian Swede.

NY Eve was spent waiting for the ball to drop and playing legos with some good friends. Love them. Photo courtesy of Misty’s iphone.

As a dietitian, I’m very aware that this time of year comes with resolutions to be healthier, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing…but the motivation often doesn’t last. Rather than go crazy, I believe in baby steps toward better health; start where you are and grow toward something more. If that means walking during your lunch break or eating vegetables 2x a week, that’s good. If it means making dinner from scratch one night a week and giving up diet pop and Splenda, that’s good, too. And if it means giving yourself a break to eat ice cream, that is also good. ;)

My favorite thing right now is roasting a ton of vegetables (sweet and red potatoes, brussels sprouts (?! i know, i know), onions, beets, squash, etc) with garlic and olive oil (and a ton of black pepper) and eating over lettuce with tahini or on top of quinoa. So good. It also is a quick meal to throw together at the end of the day when my energy level takes a dive.

We got our first snowstorm in Michigan last weekend, but the snow has melted, and it’s back to running in 40 degree temps. It’s been perfect running season for a while, and I hope it stays that way. Wishful thinking? Perhaps…

And…I don’t particularly like making NY resolutions, but I think it’s always good to keep moving in a forward direction, and if anything, I hope that this year I’ll keep growing and pursuing good things, being creative, and seeking adventure [while avoiding becoming a boring, working adult without any imagination].

What about you?? Pro NY resolutions or not??

[time]

Time is the biggest issue most people have when it comes to cooking and eating healthfully. It’s even hard for dietitians, who deal with early mornings and long days, to be excited about cooking a meal after work. I try to do most of my meal prep during the weekend, to save time (and energy) during the week.

Dave (who is now famous) is more of a kitchen adventurer than I am these days and recently recommended this lentil dish. I have to admit that my fave part was actually the lentils + cinnamon and cumin. And you probably shouldn’t make this unless you like onions…or have an intense fear of vampires (6, count ‘em, 6 cloves of garlic in this dish!).

   

Super easy to make, but you should plan to get at least 3 pans dirty, spill rice (or quinoa in my case) on the floor multiple times, and end up with tomato sauce in your hair. Or maybe I’m just talented like that…

Is it ironic that a plate of non vegan cookies (so, sometimes I bring cookies to work. newsflash: dietitians eat cookies) are sitting next to JSF’s Eating Animals? Still digesting bits and pieces of this gem…ethical eating for me is (and probably always will be) a process. I’ve had a lot of convos about this recently, and it’s always interesting to hear responses to questions like, “what are your thoughts on GMO crops?”

Mini SLU dietetic intern reunion slash wedding this past weekend (congrats R & J!). I honestly cannot believe it’s been almost a year since I finished my dietetic internship. Crazy. It so was good to catch up with these ladies, who are all now dietitians and colleagues.  I promise my hair looked halfway decent before all of the dancing started.

And…I just got back from a rain run. In St. Louis, it rained so often in the spring that I promised myself I’d never use rain as an excuse not to run. It’s funny, but I actually like running in the rain now…as much as I’m addicted to my ipod, sometimes it’s nice to take a break and run without.

Speaking of time…this is my last post as a 25 year old!

seriously?!

So the symphony and Eighth Blackbird were amazing. I loved Jennifer Higdon’s modern piece using bowed piano, meaning the musicians actually used violin strings to play the strings of the piano. Pretty cool stuff and definitely outside the normal realm of classical music.

 

Our theatre is gorgeous and not used nearly enough. My fave seat is in the back balcony because the acoustics are almost perfect up there. Nerdy, but music makes me incredibly happy.

When I lived in St. Louis, zucchini was my fave purchase at the farmers’ market every weekend. So versatile (I actually like it raw sometimes) and useful in all sorts of recipes.

 

I was flipping through my folder of bookmarks marked “recipes to try” and decided that zucchini quinoa lasagna would be an exciting culinary adventure.

 

It was super easy to make…and now my freezer is stuffed full with leftovers (I did use daiya vegan cheese but omitted the tofutti sour cream).  

I ran 6.5 miles yesterday in the sun and thought that winter was finally over (my new Brooks are awesome btdubs, like running on marshmallows)…

Until I woke up to this. Uggh. Seriously? I mean, I guess I should have expected it because I do live in Michigan (it has snowed here in May before) but still disappointing.

Umm, so I definitely did not bring anything snow-related back with me, like a winter coat or boots. This could be interesting…

Happy Monday?

*good luck to all running Boston today!

why april is better than march [so far]…

1) 45 degree weather and new running shoes (long overdue). My ?? pair of Brooks Adrenalines. Love them.

2) Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market. I rode the bikeski to the market this weekend for organic fair trade coffee from Roos Roast. Sorry for the candids, Ann Arborite strangers.

3) Sleeping at Last’s April EP (they release 3 songs per month as a part of their Yearbook project). Especially fantastic and timely songs this month. Love falling asleep to their thoughtful lyrics on repeat.

 

4) New recipes. This Moroccan quinoa and pistachio salad brings a whole new meaning to pesto. My good friend Dave (with his ever expanding culinary skills) made this for me a couple of weeks ago, and it was pretty amazing. The recipe calls for orange juice, but I blended an entire orange (minus the peel) in my food processor instead. Quinoa is also one of my fave vegetarian sources of protein.

 

I recently read this article in the NY Times about quinoa [keen-wah]. As ethical eating is a continual process for me, I realized that I know absolutely nothing about where the quinoa I buy is grown.

According to the article, Bolivia is one of the chief producers of this complete protein-containing pseudo-grain, and it’s ironic that as the demand for quinoa increases, few fewer Bolivians can now afford it, hastening their embrace of cheaper, processed foods and raising fears of malnutrition in a country that has long struggled with it.

It’s also fair to note that some of the decrease in buying quinoa there may be due to food preferences vs. economics. Processed food is attractive for many, just as it is in the US.

So what, then is our response to this problem? Buying quinoa from Bolivia certainly aids their economy, and the government is trying to beef up domestic aid, but it still remains to be seen just how much of an impact this will have on malnutrition. I wish the article had talked more about the kind of wages Bolivians make in return for growing the crop.

Hope April has started out well for all of you, too. :)