June « 2009 « Healthy and Sane

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Bloggers rule + I have a new food love

June 30th, 2009 · 14 Comments · Cleaner Life, breakfast, chicken, pasta, salad, sandwich, snacks, turkey, yogurt

How was everyone’s Monday? I find it that it’s always hard to get going in the morning, but by the end of the day I’m very well adjusted and ready to face the week I’ve been eating lots of delicious (undocumented) foods over the past few days, so today I wanted to do another multiple day recap. Let’s start with some highlights, shall we?

1. Zesty’s chicken asparagus pesto quesadilla made for a great easy lunch

2. Lara sent me this recipe for wheat germ whole-wheat buttermilk pancakes after reading my post on Clinton St. Baking Co pancakes. These made for a healthy CLC-approved Saturday morning breakfast. Fresh raspberries from the farmers market (picked just the day before!) + yogurt and maple syrup made for amazing topping

These are great as a snack with my new love (see below)

3. When I saw Lauren’s veggie stromboli, I couldn’t wait to make it! Some farmer’s market broccoli wanted to be the star of the show, so I used lots of it + some chicken in this recipe. I also used TJ’s ww pizza dough (it had some soybean oil but I still bought it), added some spinach to the broccoli when steaming it, and used 0.75 cups of organic part skim mozzarella. This was such a fun alternative to pizza, although I’ve decided that after the challenge I’m going to start buying white pizza dough – it just tastes more like the real thing

My top 3 foods (and many others below) were all inspired by bloggers. Bloggers rule! My food would be so much more boring without you

4. I had some beautiful basil from the farmers market smelling up my apartment, so on Saturday afternoon when Adam was out, I decided to combine it with a few other random things in my fridge: ww couscous, fresh tomato (also from the farmers market… I told you I went to town on my last trip! ), black olives, pine nuts, hummus + goat cheese. I warmed up the couscous and then just threw the rest of the ingredients into the bowl, and finished it off with a few ribbons of the fresh basil. The result was a mediteranian inspired creamy and delicious dish! I’d definitely recommend recreating this

5. And that’s my new food love – Artisana Cacao Bliss! OMG – SO good! It tastes like coconut infused chocolate and I just can’t get enough of this stuff! It goes great on ww english muffins, pancakes (see above), ww tortillas, and straight out of the jar Speaking of straight out of the jar, looking at the picture below makes me realize I’ve had a little too much of it lately (the picture was taken late last week and my jar does not look like this today), but it’s SO GOOD!!

An all natural (sugar free) ingredients list:

So these are my top 5! Now let’s get to the rest of the eats…

Happy Tuesday

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Celebrity sighting

June 29th, 2009 · 16 Comments · Cleaner Life

Thank you all for your sweet comments on my previous post. I am back on the CLC wagon and am looking forward to the rest of the ride. Somehow the day got away from me so I didn’t get a chance to work out yesterday, but I’ll make up for it today

What I did have a chance to do, though, is check out Boston’s Health and Fitness Expo yesterday. I’ve been reading about these types of events on blogs for what seems like ages now. I was imagining larabar and goo samples everywhere, polar and garmin coupons and I don’t know what else… maybe booths with fancy performance socks or something Unfortunately, this particular event was kind of lame (just lots of hospitals and a few ghetto products sprinkled in)… until Katy spotted the Biggest Loser guys. Where? Oh yeah… that’s Mike and Ron!!! I am a HUGE fan of the show, and seeing those guys (ok Mike) kind of brought the 16 year old in me. I really wanted to talk to him, but there was a huge line to do just that and I had to get to work. Boo to adult responsibilities I did get a chance to snap a few photos (from a weird angle)… here is the best one:

Mike + Ron from the Biggest Loser

They looked just like on the show! So so cool. Helen was there earlier, but I don’t really like her much so I’m not upset I missed her. Some lady told us that Mike’s brother lost 60 lbs already. That’s so great. Maybe they should bring him in for the next season. Ok ok, I’m done rambling. Maybe this is only exciting for me. I went back to work, and once in a while was thinking about this little celebrity sighting. I was thinking about what I’d say to them if I did stand in that line? I think I’d want to ask them if they were hungry standing there for hours? Are you a fan of the Biggest Loser? What would you say to Mike and Ron if you met them?

Yesterday’s eats included some vegan berry pie for breakfast, and then this…

Egg white omelet with mushroom, spinach, canadian bacon, light on the cheese, light on the oil + dry whole wheat toast at the Trident Cafe:

The Healthy Chocolate at the Expo (just acai berries – no sugar)… yeah, tasted like fake chocolate. No surprise there.

For dinner I made an amazing summer squash gratin from 101 cookbooks. This was pretty labor intensive (it took me probably close to an hour to slice and dice everything, make the breadcrumbs, make the sauce) but it was worth it in my opinion. I used fresh basil to make the sauce, halved the amount of oil (and added a little bit of water to the sauce instead) and only used 1.5 T of butter for the breadcrumbs instead of 4. So many complex flavors. I really loved it! Can’t wait to have it for lunch today again. Unfortunately Adam said there was too much squash there for his liking so I froze his leftovers for a dinner in the future. We’ll see how it keeps

I also ate my last chocolate macaroon

Perfect way to end the weekend (ha, that’s lobsters on the tv – we were watching food shows)!

Oh wait, last question… I went crazy buying everything in sight at the farmers market on Friday and now have a whole bunch of root vegetables (beets, turnips). I went through lots of old Cooking Light and Eating Well magazines for inspiration on how to use these up but the best I could come up with was just roasting these babies and adding them to sandwiches, salads or over some ww grains. Any ideas from you guys? Thanks!

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CLC – falling off the wagon

June 28th, 2009 · 10 Comments · Cleaner Life

As the title implies, I broke my 12 day streak of complying with CLC (actually I also had some tofu and white chocolate chips in the blondies at the blogger potluck dinner party, but that was pre-planned and was one of my exception events). The challenge so far has been great. I’ve blogged about it a bit over the past few weeks, but basically it has really helped me refocus on eating cleaner and I haven’t felt this good in months!

Yesterday, however, I was invited to a Mary Kay party and wanted to bring some dessert. I search for recipes all morning, trying to find the perfect white sugar/white flour free recipe to bring, and finally decided on trying my hand at a chocolate/strawberry dessert number (using the same trick I used while making the amazing black bean brownies… i.e. starting with unsweetened chocolate and sweetening it with agave nectar). I didn’t have most of the ingredients on hand, so I walked to Whole Foods. This is where I kind of broke down, I think. The trip took a while, they didn’t have all the ingredients I needed (and I didn’t really have a plan B recipe) so I started going through their baked goods section and reading all the ingredients lists. It was hard – mostly everything had either sugar, white flour or soy. It took me FOREVER to finally find a vegan cherry blackberry pie that complied with all the challenge rules (it used whole wheat flour and was sweetened with evaporated cane sugar and fruit juice). I bought it for backup, but I still didn’t like the idea of not bringing a homemade dessert so I went to another grocery store in an attempt to find the rest of the ingredients for my project. Nope – no luck there either. And then, by the time I got home, I basically didn’t have much time to make anything anyway. I felt so defeated So when my friend, Katy, mentioned that she made a (CLC non-compliant) lime cake I just said screw it – I’m going to have some. For the first time, I was tired of the challenge. I wasted most of my Saturday thinking and trying to comply with it. I was done! What didn’t help is that another guest brought the most amazing chocolate cake from a local bakery, so yeah – I pretty much had to have some of that as well.

Here is how you break a 12-day streak:

dessert assortment

And then you go back for seconds after a few hours oops:

I woke up early this morning to workout, but I have a food hangover! I’m hungry, yet bloated. I’m jittery from all the sugar. I feel sick. Exercise is just truly not an option right now. I’m going to have to get my butt to the gym later in the day, but I also HAVE TO continue with the challenge. At the beginning of this post I mentioned that I haven’t felt this good in months, since starting the challenge. I’ve been feeling so much more in control, so much more at peace with my body and how I’m taking care of it. I want that feeling back! How do you handle the day after an excessive food splurge?

P.S. – the vegan berry pie from Whole Foods is awesome!

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Boston blogger potluck dinner

June 27th, 2009 · 8 Comments · entertaining

Well well well, looks like I’m majorly behind on my blogging. Better late than never though, right? Last Sunday, I hosted a Boston blogger potluck dinner. I thought it would be the perfect way to see some of the bloggers I’ve met before and meet a few other bloggers I follow but have never met in person. Of course, given that we’re all foodies here, the food was to die-for! Everyone brought 1 or 2 dishes of their choice, and we had a fabulous spread. I’m so glad a few of my (non-blogger) girlfriends and my husband were able to attend the dinner as well. It’s nice to have the people I love get a little glimpse of my blogger life

So dinner attendees included the following: Lauren, Katie, Shannon, Tiffany, Katy, Coco and her boyfriend Joey, Kelly, me and my husband Adam. Such a beautiful group! I was kind of running all over the place at first, and totally forgot to get a group picture of everyone … too bad because everyone was looking gooood

So let’s get to food then. I definitely remember to take pictures of food! Here is (most of) the spread:

APPETIZERS AND SALADS

Lauren has been featuring on her blog lots of amazing looking recipes from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, and for the party she decided to try Dreena’s roasted red pepper & almond hummus. This hummus was a little different from other hummus I’ve had in the past. The almonds really lent a grainier texture and made this dip very nutty… I’d call it an almond spread with chickpeas Lauren mentioned there were dozens of other unique hummus recipes in ED&BV so be sure to check out the book when you get a chance!

Tiffany shared her usual dinner party staples: low fat homemade boursin cheese (nice and creamy!) with wheat thins…

… and her German potato salad (check out the recipe in the comments section here). Love all the garlic in this dish!

Katie brought one of her favorite salads she discovered at 101 cookbooks: lemon scented quinoa salad. She was kind enough to bring the red onions in a little side dish, so I was able to sample this creamy goodness. Quinoa is such a great (whole wheat) grain (or is it a seed?)! It’s easy to cook, is very light and fluffy and so versatile. The lemon and tahini flavors worked so well together. I loved the salad and will definitely be making it myself again!

Coco made these professional looking tomato/mozzarella/basil skewers. I think Coco should go into catering. These little guys were so cute (and delicious of course – you can’t go wrong with this combo!). Sorry for the blurry photo, I was trying to be quick

I thought we needed a little more greens, and threw together this mixed greens/strawberry, dried figs, almonds and goat cheese salad. I’ll assume everyone enjoyed it since it was gone in minutes

ENTREES

Shannon got a hold of some rhubarb at the local farmers market, and brought 2 dishes starring rhubarb. She blogs about both here, so be sure to check out her blog for the recipes! This was my first time trying rhubarb (I’ve always been curious about it but never dared to actually purchase it and put it to good use) and I was really impressed with its flavor – kind of tangy. Now I’d like to make some pie with it… something like a rhubarb cherry pie. Come to think of it, maybe the reason I want to pair rhubarb with cherries is because Shannon did in this pork tenderloin with Indian spiced cherry-rhubarb chutney. I love pork tenderloin (always so tender and lean) and I’m a huge sucker for pretty much anything-cherry. This dish kind of rocked my world

The other dish Shannon brought was tofu with hot and sour sauce, served over kale. Again, the rhubarb (I think it was the rhubarb?) added a nice tanginess to the dish. Another winner! Man, I’m going to be saying this a lot in this post

Katy made some grilled chicken skewers and made an excellent peanut sauce for dipping (not pictured). She said she didn’t really use a recipe, just used some good ingredients and they all came together. One day I hope to be able to wing it like Katy and make such lovely dishes.

Coco’s boyfriend, Joey, didn’t come empty handed either. I was very impressed with his culinary skills as well as with his courage to face so many food-obsessed girls in one room (he wanted to join us even before finding out my husband was able to make it to the party). Joey followed this recipe from Cooking Light for spaghetti and meatballs (omitting the spaghetti and using some arribiatta sauce from Whole Foods). The meatballs were very juicy and flavorful and I loved that he made his man-dish using a lighter recipe. Extra points for Joey!

DRINKS

We had some wine for beverages and Kelly made this amazing sangria flora (I think she may have used this recipe):

The sangria was light and fruity – you can get in trouble drinking the stuff because it really does not taste alcoholic at all. I think the fruit soaked up all that alcohol, but after a few bites of it, it started going down really easy I added some wine into my sangria glass throughout the night and it kept it a little sweet. I think sangria is the perfect summer drink!

DESSERT

You know dessert is my favorite part of the meal so I was super excited to dig in We had a great little variety of desserts, starting with some white chocolate and raspberries blondies Lauren made, based on VeggieGirl’s recipe (sorry I can’t find the exact link to it).

Closeup… mmm

The blondies were so moist, fluffy and buttery. The white chocolate added a nice creamy touch of sweetness without overpowering the fresh fruity flavor of the raspberries. Everyone loved these, and even both boys at the party requested that these are made again. In fact Coco made these nearly the next day after the party. You can find the recipe for the blondies on her blog here (she followed Lauren’s version of VeggieGirl’s recipe).

We also had the amazing black bean brownies I made. Yup, amazing!

And Katy made a fresh fruit salad with nearly every kind of fruit they had at the super market. She sweetened this with agave nectar and added some chopped mint for a fun little twist on a conventional fruit salad.

MY PLATES

I’ve sampled every single thing. Everything was spectacular, so you can multiply these plates by 2… because yes, I went back for seconds.

A special thank you to my husband for doing all the dishes after the party! He’s a keeper

Thank you, ladies, Joey and Adam, for coming. I had a great time! And I hope the rest of you enjoyed this little recap. What would you bring to a potluck dinner?

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Eating chocolate during the CLC – amazing black bean brownies

June 25th, 2009 · 16 Comments · Cleaner Life, baking

One of the things I was most nervous about after deciding to do my own version of Heather’s Cleaner Life Challenge, was going almost 30 days without chocolate and other sugary sweets. I am a self-proclaimed chocoholic and anyone who knows me (in both real and blog life) knows that even that is kind of an understatement. The challenge so far is going well. I’ve had some kind of chocolate tasting thing nearly every day, but that’s a huge improvement over what I was doing before. Better yet, these chocolate tasting treats were sugar free, and I’m not talking artificial sweeteners… I’m talking natural, unrefined sweeteners. Yeah, baby

So yeah, given my love for chocolate and an upcoming blogger potluck dinner, I went searching my favorite blogs and magazines for some inspiration. Most sugarless desserts sounded boring for this chocoholic… until I stumbled upon a recipe for amazing black bean brownies I’ve saved a long time ago. The recipe is originally from Baking with Agave Nectar by Ania Catalano, and after tasting these guys, I need to get my hands on this cookbook. Yes, need. The copy from my library mysteriously disappeared (I’m not even kidding, the records say “missing”) and honestly I can’t blame whomever took it. Actually I can blame them (sneaky thieves!) but you know what I mean…

Aside from being white sugar and white flour free (yay for staying on top of the CLC), these were fantastic! The brownies have some instant coffee in the batter, and the coffee really intensified the chocolate flavor. The texture was fudge-like, like a creamy flourless chocolate cake. My mouth is watering just thinking about these brownies (alas, they’re all gone). I halved the recipe, and the only substitution I made was using almond slivers instead of walnuts (one of my party attending friends, Katy, is allergic to walnuts). I think walnuts would have been excellent in these. Next time. Oh and no, you can’t taste the black beans

Progress pics galore…

All the ingredients:

Melt butter + unsweetened chocolate in the microwave

Do not taste this! Yup, I did… unsweetened choc + butter = gross

Pulse some almonds, black beans + a little bit of the choc mixture. If the batter is too dry, add a little more chocolate.

Combine choc mixture, remaining almonds (or walnuts) + ground coffee

Beat eggs

Add agave nectar

Combine the chocolate/coffee mixture with the black bean/almond mixture

Add eggs/agave mixture, saving a little (as per recipe), and mix well

Pour into the pan

Add some fluffy eggs on top (looks funny but it turned out great!)

Bake + cool (I refrigerated mine overnight)

Cut into squares or triangles. I cut mine into 12 triangles (that’s for the half recipe) but these are quite rich so I’d probably cut into smaller squares next time.