healthy

You are currently browsing articles tagged healthy.

Simplicity

After being away 2 weekends in a row, having a 3 hour wine class every Tuesday night, having a bunch of guest articles that are (over)due, and working on a new social media venture, I was a little too tired to cook last night. Earlier in the week, I was inspired by a post from Fiona’s blog (love her!) to jazz up regular old tuna salad. I don’t know why I never thought to add a little bit of spice with a jalapeno before, but this simple addition was completely game-changing.

Since we already had a few cans of tuna in the house, and I am loving cannellini beans anyway, it was simple to pull together a very quick and delicious tuna mix.

2 cans of tuna, which, to my cats’ delight I accidentally bought in olive oil

1 rinsed and drained can of cannellini beans

about 1/4 of a chopped onion

1 jalapeno, chopped, seeds included

1 TSP of real mayonnaise, In the love/hate mayo war, I LOVE.

tuna salad ingredients

tuna salad

I mixed all of the ingredients together and added some black pepper, then put the mix in the fridge until the hubby got home.

Then I grilled some English muffins on either side until lightly browned. topped with tuna salad, baby spinach, and Cabot sharp cheddar. Our sheet pans are positively ancient. They belonged to a neighbor before I got them about 6 years ago. But they work just fine and save me a little bit of money.

tuna melt

I popped the open sandwich in the oven at 380 until the cheese had melted, maybe a little too much. . .

image

Then I topped my sandwich with some buffalo sauce, closed it up, and dug in. Delicious!

Since the sandwiches were a little bit spicy, a little bit cheesy, I decided to pair them with the Grooner that I received as a sample (a Monika Caha brand as the ZVY-GELT last week was)

Grooner  Gruner Veltliner

As the label notes, this wine is PERFECT with food. It has a nice acidity to it and lots of fresh, tart apple flavors. Mmmm it was a quick and easy but REALLY good dinner.

Today is the last day to enter my Oldways Whole Grains Month giveaway! And everybody wins if you visit Oldways’ Whole Grains Council website! Tell them what you are doing to celebrate Whole Grains Month, and they will automatically send you some awesome coupons for whole grain products. I just got mine yesterday and am excited to go shopping for Bob’s Red Mill and Barilla whole grain products!

In case you missed it yesterday, I entered the Foodbuzz Project Food Blog contest after lots of back and forth on whether or not I would. Are you planning on entering?

Up tonight, a dinner date at the brand new Deuxave in Boston, and I am SO looking forward to a fun weekend getaway in Vermont. . . more on that later!

Annnnnd if you haven’t yet, I would love it if you could buzz my Foodbuzz Alaska Seafood dinner:

http://www.foodbuzz.com/blogs/2594074-foodbuzz-alaska-seafood-dinner

Just create an account, if you don’t have one, log in, buzz, and voila! I am currently behind, and I would love to represent Alaska Seafood at the festival!

Have a great day everyone!

Tags: Food, Gruner Veltliner, healthy, recipe, tuna

Cannellini beans are my current obsession. I love how creamy they are; they TASTE fattening and rich but are very low in fat, high in fiber and protein and mineral-rich. They are the perfect addition to or base for many fall recipes.

With Whole Grains Month on the brain, I started out with a base of whole wheat pasta and built a delicious, simple sauce that was ready in less than half an hour.

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped tomatoes, the last of my heirlooms

1 small red onion, chopped

1 whole head of garlic, smashed and diced into tiny pieces

tomatoes, onions, garlic

1 cup sweet garlic red peppers

sweet roasted peppers

1 can Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 box whole grain rotini (makes enough for at least 3 leftover servings, perfect for lunch!)

25 medium shrimp, cleaned

4 cups baby spinach

whole grain pasta

I started by simmering the red onion in olive oil on low for about 5 minutes to make sure that it was cooked through before adding the garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and shrimp. When the shrimp was pink on one side, I flipped them and then added the Cannellini beans to the mix

shrimp and tomatoes

Everything simmered together for a few minutes, and I tossed in some crushed red pepper, garlic powder, and black pepper. Then I added in the spinach and just let it sit on top of everything to wilt ever so slightly. When the shrimp were cooked through, I took a scoop of pasta and a heaping ladle-full of shrimp and sauce and mixed them together in a bowl.

pasta and shrimp

SO GOOD! All of the flavors melded together, the sauce thickened a little bit, and the pasta had a nice bite to it but quickly soaked up the remainder of the sauce.  This meal was so warm and hearty and so tasty, the perfect thing for a dark and rainy night. I will be making it again.

Speaking of Whole Grains Month, have you entered my giveaway?

Tags: healthy, pasta, recipe, shrimp, tomatoes

Happy Tuesday! Today is the last day to enter my giveaway for a copy of The Secret Ingredient. I am already working on 2 more recipes from this flavor-filled cookbook, and if you haven’t entered, you will want to!

Yesterday I took a mini vacation with my sister and niece, Isabella, to Davis Farmland in Sterling, MA. If you have been reading for awhile, you may remember that we visited this farm as well as Nashoba Winery last year, and we all loved it so much, we decided to go back.

Davis Farmland

Davis Farmland houses a variety of animals from around the world. Many of them are dwindling farm animal species, and Davis Farmland is working to preserve and educate about them. Isabella and I agreed that the little teddy bear-like lamb below was our favorite.

baby lamb peacock

This cow was just hilarious. He held his mouth wide open for us to drop the food in.

cow

We spent an exhausting day playing with and feeding farm animals, then at Davis Farmland’s water park and then at dinner at The Banshee, a great little Irish pub in our neighborhood.

When I got home, I knew I had to whip up some lunches for the week, so I grabbed a bunch of stuff I had on hand.

1 can chickpeas

1 can black beans

1 can organic roasted tomatoes with chiles

2 red bell peppers

2 cups roasted corn (from Trader Joe’s, great ingredient for so many dishes!)

bean salad

I simply drained and rinsed the beans and mixed those with the corn, tomatoes, chopped red pepper, and 2 finely diced cloves of garlic.

After I mixed it all up, I added some crushed red pepper flakes for spice. We will eat this for the week, served on top of heaps of spring lettuce mix with some other veggies like radishes and carrots. I love lunches that last a week!

bean and corn salad

I hope you are all having a great week so far. To be honest, it’s a bit tough to be back in the office while my family is visiting, but I have some Salesforce training to sit through. . . bah.

 

Do you buy or bring lunch to work?

Tags: beans, Davis Farmland, healthy, recipe, salad, Vegetarian

« Older entries § Newer entries »

new restaurant
WordPress SEO fine-tune by Meta SEO Pack from Poradnik Webmastera