Recipes

Healthy Food Choices: Napa Valley Salad with Cranberries and Almonds

I think I have a new favorite salad!

Last Saturday for special time, my 6 yo daughter had us back at Fuddruckers – and again, it was a no carb day for me.  So that ruled out my favorite, the turkey burger. But I was hungry so, after searching the menu for a good no carb choice, I settled on the Napa Valley Salad with grilled chicken (minus the blue cheese).

Oh this was a good choice, and again, I wish I had brought my camera so I could show you a picture. I’ll have to make it again and show you a picture of it later.

This salad does contain carbs – in the form of apples and cranberries. But I decided that it was better to have my carbs in the form of fruit than with a hamburger bun and fries.  Anyway, here’s how I would (will) reproduce this salad at home.

Ingredients:

2-3 cups chopped Romaine Lettuce

1 sliced apple (slices chopped in half)

a sprinkling of dried cranberries

a sprinkling of slivered almonds

one grilled chicken breast, sliced (I’d probably do a 1/2 chicken breasts)

Assembly order:

1. chopped romain lettuce

2. add in apple, cranberries, and almonds

3. toss all together

4. top with sliced grilled chicken

Yum!

I’m not big on salad dressing, and usually go without. But you can always use your favorite salad dressing on the side, and then dip your fork into it then get your forkful of salad to get both the flavor of the dressing for a lot less calories and fat.

Healthy Food Choices: Homemade Veggie Burgers

I’ve been meaning to try the homemade veggie burger recipe from the Hungry Girl cookbook for about a year now, but only this weekend did I finally get around to giving it a try.

Now, I was a little skeptical about these because they contain a lot of onion and peppers, and while I like those for flavoring, I’m not usually real big on them as main vegetable ingredients in any dish. but I was surprised. I liked these – enough to eat them three times over the weekend!

The original Hungry Girl recipe is called “Oatstanding Veggie Patties” and can be found on page 72 of the Hungry Girl cookbook. But, because it calls for Fiber One cereal (which I don’t have), I chose to adapt the recipe a bit to use ingredients I have on hand.

Here’s the recipe for homemade veggie burgers that I came up with based on the original Hungry Girl recipe:

1/2 cup old fashioned oatmeal (not the instant kind) soaked in 1/3 cup boiling water

1/2 cup of mashed pinto beans (instead of Fiber One)

1 cup chopped onions

1 cup each of chopped yellow and red bell peppers (you can use green too, I just happened to have yellow and red) – so in all you’ll have 2 cups of chopped peppers

1 cup chopped button mushrooms

1/2 cup finely shredded carrot

1 egg (you can use egg substitute if you prefer)

2 teaspoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon salt

black pepper to taste

minced or chopped garlic to taste

Instructions:

Basically just mix it all together, then form into balls and put on a plate lined with wax paper to rest.

Let rest in refrigerator for at least an hour.

Drain any excess fluids carefully.

Preheat griddle or pan with olive oil

Place ball of mixture in pan, and press flat with spatula. Cook for 4-5 minutes on each side or until done.  Flip carefully as they tend to come apart if not fully done on one side.

Serve as you would any burger, or use as filling for a tortilla wrap.

This made 7 burger patties for me, which I ate over three different meals. I just kept the uncooked patties in the refigerator until I was ready to cook some, then drained off the excess moisture and cooked up the ones I wanted. Worked well.

They were very moist and flavorful. But don’t hold together well, which for me was okay. But I think next time I’ll try adding some of  Bob’s Red Mill high fiber cereal to emulate the Fiber One’s ability to soak up more of the moisture

Enjoy!

…Shannon

P.S. If you don’t have a copy of the Hungry Girl cookbook yet, try to check it out from the library or you can pick up on Amazon new or used below. It’s full of great recipes and tips for eating well without a huge amount of calories and fat.

Healthy Choices: Homemade Veggie Pizza

Every Friday, for the last 15 years, is pizza night at our house. Pizza and movie night to be exact. I make homemade pizza and we all retire to watch videos (the kids downstairs, my hubby and I upstairs). It’s our date night, on the cheap.  Everyone gets grumpy if they have to miss pizza night.

Now my favorite pizza toppings are pineapple and tomato, but one night early this year I didn’t have either on hand, so I decided to try some veggies.

Years ago, when I was a nanny in southern California, there was this pizza delivery place that made the BEST vegetable pizza. So I decided to see if I could make one I like. And discovered that I actually really prefer a veggie pizza over my pineapple and tomatoes (though that’s still good).

I’ve also since been working on moving toward a healthier crust. We’ve used the same pizza dough recipe for years, but started tweaking it, transitioning to a more whole wheat recipe. 

For my kids and hubby, I make this pizza dough recipe 2 cups white, 1 cup whole wheat, with a 1/4 cup of my favorite high fiber additive (Bob’s Red Mill High Fiber Cereal). 

For my 12 yo daughter and I, I make it as either 1 1/2 cups white and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat  with 1/4 cup of the fiber additive, or all 3 cups whole wheat flour with a 1/4-1/2 cup of fiber additive. You can play around and see what you like.

Here’s the pizza dough recipe:

2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup water

Combine and let proof that for 10 minutes

Add in:

2 Tablespoons EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/4 flour mixture (I usually do the 3 cups of flour and 1/4 of fiber additive)

Mix & Knead until smooth and elastic. Remember if you are using whole wheat dough, it requires a little more kneading than white flour. (I cheat and use my mixer ) 

 Let rise, covered, in an oiled bowl for 1 hour or until double. Break into balls and press out on a greased pan. 

(2 batches of this recipe makes 1 large pizza and 3 small pizzas for my family)

Now for the Toppings:

For pizza sauce, I use a quick and simple homemade pizza sauce recipe made from tomato paste, honey, and a little seasoning.

Then for my pizza, I chop up my veggies. I prefer carrots, broccoli, zucchini, and spinach. You can use whatever your favorites are. I sometimes will mix broccoli and cauliflower. And have found that I don’t care for zucchini on the pizza if there’s no broccoli (not sure why).  Anyway, the veggies all chopped up look something like this:

After I put on the sauce and a thin sprinkling of mozerella cheese, I put the carrots on the bottom, then the broccoli, and then zucchini. So it looks something like this:

Then I pile on handfuls of spinach and sprinkle on the cheese. The spinach cooks down, but when it’s fresh it is a huge pile of veggies. My husband just shakes his head at how many veggies are on this pizza, but I like it. 

Here you can see the height difference between my veggie pizza and his salami-sweet onion-bell pepper pizza next to it (before it’s cooked):

So this is cooked for 10-12 minutes at 450, and it’s done.

That’s it. I usually end up eating all but 3 or 4 pieces, which I then save for breakfast. Usually my 10 yo son comes in the morning and steals a piece (which I think is pretty cool that he’ll eat a cold breakfast pizza of veggies )

But anyway, if you like veggies and are looking for a healthier replacement for pizza, I encourage you to experiment and see if you can come up with a veggie pizza that you like.

Enjoy!

…Shannon