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Healthy Recipe Week: Melissa Nibbles

April 28, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 5 comments

Good afternoon! I hope you have been enjoying Healthy Recipe Week so far. I am, and all of recipes are going to be added to my meal-planning in the very near future. Inspiration from fellow bloggers is certainly helpful when you are in a cooking funk!

Todays post is for Sweet Potato Pasta from Melissa Nibbles, a blog I head to first thing every morning for lots of laughs, candid posts, restaurant reviews, and dating stories. Winking smile

I love sweet potatoes, I love whole wheat pasta, and I love Greek yogurt. All three together in a nutritious, hot, and quick meal seem like the perfect recipe for a day like today.

Most of all I love Melissa’s blog, especially on Three Things Thursday! I wasn’t able to comment today, but I laughed out loud about the piece on Experts, especially blogger running experts. If you haven’t checked it out, go now!

 

Sweet Potato Pasta
Ingredients:
1 box of whole wheat pasta
Extra virgin olive oil
2 sweet potatoes
sea salt
pepper
2 shallots, sliced
1 tbs chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/3 Greek yogurt

Instructions:
Cook pasta according to directions on the box. While the pasta is cooking, heat about a tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the potatoes, 3⁄4 teaspoon sea salt, and 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the shallots and rosemary and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. When pasta is done cooking, reserve 1/2 cup pasta water, drain the pasta and return to the pot. Toss the pasta with the potato mixture, Parmesan, and reserved water.
sweet potato pasta

Serve with a dollop of the Greek yogurt.

sweet potato pasta

 

Do you have a favorite, healthy pasta dish?

Tags: Food, Guest Blogger, healthy, Healthy Recipe Week, pasta, recipe, sweet potato

Black Beans for Breakfast

March 16, 2011 in Food by traveleatlove | 11 comments

Ready for a spring health challenge update? I am having a pretty awesome week, and I have to chalk at least part of that up to the fact that I started making a bunch of little changes as soon as we returned from California last week.

California Mexican Food

More on those changes in a bit. One big change that I have been trying to make for quite some time is eating breakfast. I don’t love eating in the morning, but almost daily I find myself at 11:00 and literally shaking from not eating because I just wasn’t hungry earlier. No bueno.

As the above photo might indicate, we ate quite a bit of Mexican food in California, some healthy, some topped with cheese and sour cream, and some in-between. California Mexican food is SO GOOD, and we actually found ourselves eating it in lieu of big meals and expensive dinners. It was just what we wanted.

One morning, I woke up craving black beans, so we made our way to a little Mexican restaurant near our hotel. I was so hungry that I didn’t even take photos. The hubs had a traditional breakfast burrito, and I ordered a plate of black beans with a side of guacamole. With several types of salsa from the salsa bar, I discovered the perfect breakfast. I love the texture and the spice and the satisfying protein, fiber, and fat in this breakfast, and I have eaten it twice since we returned.

The other days I have been eating coconut mango oats . It’s amazing how much better I feel when I eat in the morning and how much more energy I have. Who would have imagined?! Winking smile 

In other health news, I have been drinking more water, thanks to a new co2 container for our Sodastream and have resumed my twice-daily green tea habit.

I have successfully added more protein to my diet through a few different channels, including Trader Joe’s vanilla whey protein powder. I am having a scoop of this in a glass of milk for part of my afternoon snack, and I am finding it fills me up.

Most of all, I have completely changed up my workouts. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I did Jillian Michael’s Yoga Meltdown on Sunday. In addition to that I have done a two mile speed workout and two 25 minute weights sessions, doing a lot of planks and squats and getting all sorts of sore!

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I start to notice a difference almost immediately when I start strength training, as opposed to focusing more on cardio. The clothes that were not quite fitting fit again, and I feel so much more energetic and strong. That said, I am pondering the idea of entering a few 5k’s just to see if this girl can run fast.

Thanks for all of the awesome comments and support in my last health update. You all had some great small steps you wanted to take to get healthier for spring.

Have you been successful at many any healthy changes this week? Are you a breakfast person, or, like me, do you have something against eating in the morning?

Tags: breakfast, Food, health, healthy, workouts

Curried Chickpeas with Habanero Mango Chutney

March 12, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 7 comments

Meal #1 of the Spring Health Challenge was a success. It wasn’t really any different from regular meals, but as it is fairly healthy and inexpensive, I made a huge batch for freezing. Adding protein to my diet? Check! Drinking more water? Check! Going for a run and doing strength training? Check!

I can honestly say I am feeling better already. That might also have something to do with being done with the nasty old flu. . . I hope.

Anyway, I am always up for Indian-inspired food at home, and I was jonesing to use the slow-cooker. Thus was born slow cooker curried chickpeas with mango chutney.

making Indian food at home

My recent discovery that dried beans cook up really well in the slow-cooker made me brave enough to just toss in a 16 ounce bag of chickpeas, covered by about an inch and a half of water. To this, I added a couple shakes each of cinnamon, cayenne pepper, curry powder, paprika, black pepper, and crushed coriander seeds. I also added a can of crushed tomatoes, a scoop of coconut oil, and six potatoes, sliced into discs.

spiced chickpeas

I set it and forget it, leaving the chickpeas to cook on high for four hours, then lowering them to low for three more hours. I checked on them about every hour and added more water and crushed red pepper toward the end.

I didn’t want to just have the curried chickpeas on their own, so I decided to whip up some mango chutney as well. I started with two cups of frozen mango and added it to a pan with two habaneros, just chopped in half.

mango

I covered the mixture with white vinegar, added a spoonful of honey for sweetness to balance out the habanero spice, and cooked the chutney on low for a little over an hour.

mango chutney

Eventually, it got syrupy and smelled lovely. Just be sure to strain the habaneros out before serving!

To serve, I filled bowls with the chickpeas, chutney, and topped it with a scoop of Fage 0% Greek yogurt, served with a glass of Travessia Un-Oaked Chardonnay.

curried chickpeas

The husband said it was better than Indian food at any restaurant we have been to; I will take that as a sign of success!

Now for the giveaways: The winner of the $30 CSN gift code is. . . Melissa! And the winner of the restaurant gift cards giveaway is. . . Shannon! Ladies, please email me so I can match you up with your prizes!

Tags: chickpeas, curry, Fage, healthy, healthy recipes, Indian Food, mango chutney, recipe, vegan, Vegetarian, yogurt

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