In my quest to add a broader range of foods to my diet, eggplant makes another appearance.
Some good ol’ chicken breast baked with tomato sauce, mushrooms, onions, eggplant thrown on top of some whole wheat pasta.
Of course a little parsley sprinkled on top prior to the meals photo-shoot.
Family day in several other provinces, but since we live in Manitoba, today’s holiday is appropriately called Louis Riel Day.
We got to sleep in a little bit today which allowed for a little more time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast.
Shredded potatoes/hash browns with onions and a tomato, mushroom and extra old cheddar cheese omelette.
Garnished with my favourite food: Avocados
Time to enjoy the Festival du Voyageurs!
Never, ever made beets before.
Mrs. OddBody/Shortcake loves beets.
I have some in the pantry…I know, why don’t I cook them!
Genius.
Here is a recipe for a simple, yet tasty beet salad.
I used 4 beets. Boiled them, peeled them and thinly sliced them.
Cut up up several radishes mixed them all with red wine vinegar, olive oil and mustard. Which I conveniently also had in my fridge for the first time ever!
Placed it all on a bed of lettuce and sprinkled the mixture with parsley.
Surprisingly filling…and super tasty.
Beets will definitely be making a few more appearances in my meals
I mean, just look at this nutritional info!
Feeling like some Saturday night burgers?
I know I am!
But let's make them turkey burgers.
Add:
Add it all into some ground turkey mix it up and roll it into balls and place them in the fridge.
When you are ready, throw them on the foreman grill or the frying pan and when they are cooked throughout, melt some cheese with some mushrooms and onions on top.
Today, these delectable burgers were served on thin whole wheat burger buns with some home-made fries and Caesar's salad.
Sometime I just get into a groove and to save time for the rest of the week I cook 3 or four meals at once.
Last night was one such night!
First on the menu, well mostly to snack on while I cooked, some hummous and veggies!
I finally prepared some soup from the vegetable broth I had slaved over last Friday (by slaved I mean thrown veggie debris into water and cooked for 4 hours without paying attention)
This hearty soup consisted of:
1 cup of black beans
2 Russet Potatoes
1/2 cup of basmati rice
Several medium-sized carrots
An onion
Several stalks of celery all sliced up
Some green onions
One large Green Pepper
Minced Garlic
some salt and pepper
I brought it to a boil and let it simmer on low for a couple of hours while I prepared my pasta (The actual meal of the day)
Today's pasta ended up with a mixture of left-over spaghetti mixed with some shell noodles to finish off a couple of bags (luckily both were whole grain, phew, dodged a bullet there)
The sauce was rather meaty with a pound of extra lean ground beef, an onion and several cups of spinach simmered in a can of tomato sauce.
Magnifique!
When all was ready, I mixed all of the noodles up with the sauce to make it all so hamburger helperesque
Throw on some mozzarella cheese, blur the picture and you have a good meal...or three!
Does anyone else have a day of dinner mass production?
Tonnes of protein, tonnes of energy...Perfect!
Here is my typically breakfast right now:
About a cup of egg whites + 1 whole egg + a whole wack (wack is a unit of measurement right?) of mushrooms, scrambled.
1 Cup of oats + raisins or banana + almond or peanut butter sprinkled with shredded coconut
And a cup or two of Joe (fair trade of course) to set my gears in motion!
This Friday, we found ourselves a little burned out with Friday pizza but just as I had suspected when Super Bowl Sunday rolled around...we were craving it once again!
And here is the result:
Super cheesy, non?
I'm glad things are back to normal.
Although this omelette has nothing to do with football; it is a bit of a Sunday tradition...so today it is super!
Sorry it's a lousy picture, this super-omelette is filled with fried mushrooms, some old cheddar cheese and some green onion and is composed of about one cup of egg whites and two omega-pro eggs.
Accompanying the omelette is hash browns (4 potatoes worth) with an onion and a finely sliced orange.
This was all eaten post-oatmeal of course, can't go a day without oatmeal.
Enjoy the game!
This Sunday, Mrs. Wife decided she wanted to make an ultra cute bento box lunch that involved a bunch of sticky rice.
Being true Vancouverites, you know what that means...
Time for some home-made sushi!
Unfortunately, I was a little too gung-ho and when I decided to start the sushi construction I realized I had very little fixings for filling up the rolls!
So I looked through the pantry and grabbed a tin of pink salmon and loaded up the first roll.
Amazingly, I actually rolled these up properly
And I didn't even destroy them when I sliced them up!
I ate these tasty little pieces for a snack and then made another salmon roll along with a very basic carrot roll
Like I said...very low supplies
Although I did have seaweed handy.
Strange.
The last two rolls shall be my lunch tomorrow, hopefully they taste just as good tomorrow.
Bonito Appetito!
Because I love making some za' every week.
Here are a few tasty pictures of last weeks endeavours.
The preparation of the onions and mushrooms.
The Spreading of the dough
The addition of the tomato sauce and some oregano
The pre-cheese toppings
A little too much broiling..but still good.
Another successful Friday feast.
These Saturday morning workouts are becoming some of my best of the week!
Maybe it's because I don't usually have anything else to do besides picking up a few groceries
Perhaps it is the massive amounts of home-made pizza I ate the night before that fuels my workouts.
Or, it's because it's the only day of the week that I have a training partner.
Either way they have been something to look forward to and the workouts never disappoint (myself at least)
This week I started out with a few minutes of stretching while I waited for my training partner to arrive.
First exercise was some wide-grip chin ups as per the usual. Warmed-up with one set of a few long explosive feel reps
Now it was time for the tough stuff: 3 weighted sets {50 lbs x 8; 50 lbs x 7; 50 lbs x 4} and then one all out set of 14 reps with just my body weight.
Did deadlifts second today. 4 sets {135 lbs x 12; 225 lbs x 12; 315 lbs x 10; 365 lbs x 5}
Good and warmed-up now. Rolled right into some underhand grip barbells rows for three more sets {135 lbs x 12; 185 lbs x 12; 185 lbs x 10}
I'm really trying to work on back thickness right now so I finished up with 2 sets of dumbbell rows {105 lbs x 12; 105 lbs x 10} and then three sets of T-bar Rows {90 lbs x 12-15}
That's all she wrote!
Anything in particular that makes your workouts out of the ordinary?
Since I have been working at night a couple of times a week with limited access to food I decided to make some protein bars that I can eat on the road and that won't cost me an arm and leg.
This is my first time trying this at home so I basically just followed the first result that Google gave me. I picked the bar with the least ingredients/had all the ingredients that I have at home.
Here is the easy to follow recipe:
3 Cups of Rolled Oats
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter (Where the ingredients are only peanuts)
1 Cup Skim Milk
4 Scoops of Chocolate Whey Protein Isolate
Dash of Cinnamon (I didn't use this)
Start off by dumping the oats and 4 scoops of protein powder into a bowl
Then blend the peanut butter into the milk (I used the good old Magic Bullet)
Then just fold the peanut-milk into the oats until it is nice and evenly mixed. This will be an intense arm workout, so blast through the pain!
When it starts to look edible you can scoop out a piece with you hands and mould it into bar form (or any form you like)
Wrap it up and store it in the freezer until you want to eat it.
I got 8 bars out of this recipe, should last me a couple of weeks as long as I don't eat them every day.
Extras that I may add next time:
-Chocolate Chips
-Flax Seeds
-Shredded Coconut
Anyone Else have any tasty ideas for quick meals or other foods that could be put into bar form?
On any given Sunday I decide to throw together a massive feast for my wife and I and probably Harvey too.
This time we had some eggplant lying around so I decided to do something useful with it: Stuff it! (I have no prior experience with eggplant).
I found this yummy little recipe for eggplant in my online quest to find something to do with said eggplant.
It looked easy enough so let's give it a shot!
Started off by frying up the stuffing for the eggplant (1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 1 onion, 2 tomatoes and the inside of the halved eggplant)
Also heated up the two eggplant halves before commencement of the stuffing
After I filled them up with all of the goodies I sprinkled a little feta cheese inside them and placed them in a dish, filled it halfway with water and threw it in the oven for 50 minutes or so.
Next up was the yam fries with the enormous yam that was bigger than Harvey! It's like a Zeppelin flying over top of him.
Here's how I cut them: Quartered then sliced into delicious fry-sized morsels.
And finally the coup de gras, le chicken! Some of the left-over eggplant stuffing on top of the chicken which is sitting on a bed of spinach. Let's not forget the mozzarella cheese sprinkled on top!
Here it is on the way in:
And on the way out:
And when it is was all put together...(Stuffed eggplant at the top)
I know someone who was pretty interested in this meal...
Have a good week everybody.
Surround yourself with good food!
You've heard it before, but that's all you need to do. And it is just that simple.
First place place to tackle is, obviously, your home.
Next up: Work
This is the worst place for bad snacking for most people. When birthday parties roll around or during the holidays {luckily those days are behind us for a little while} the office is ripe with tasty temptations.
In the Car
There you have it, just a few simple tips to help keep you from going overboard during the day and digging back in to that Ben-Jerry's at the end of the day.
Anyone else have any other snacking tricks that they would care to share with the rest of the class?
Every family has their fall back meal, when there doesn't seem to be that much in the pantry or you don't feel like putting in all the effort for a show-stopper of a meal.
I introduce you to the bean dish. Nothing special but boy was it tasty! And as I learned later in life, it packs one heck of a nutritious punch.
In order to make bean dish all you need is:
1-medium sized onion
1-medium green pepper and red pepper if you feel like it
15 oz. of Red Kidney Beans
15 oz. of black beans
1 cup of frozen corn
1 cup of frozen peas
I cup of spinach (Not in mamma's recipe, but I throw it in almost everything)
1/2 cup of cubed cheddar cheese (add more if you like it extra cheesy)
Some salt and pepper to taste and perhaps some oregano near the end
A few splashes of hot sauce and some garlic
Start things off by chopping up the onion and get them frying in a non-stick pan
When all of the onions are starting to caramelize and starting to smell delicious,
toss in the 'fiberlicious' kidney beans
and then the antioxidant packed black beans
After this I added about 10 splashes of hot sauce (the bottle says that one is enough)
Follow that up by tossing in some peas, corn, and peppers. When the peas and corn are defrosted throw in the cheese cubes with spinach and let it all melt into the beany-mushy mess.
When the cheese is nice and gooey toss in some oregano and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve on a bed of rice and voila! You have enough fibre and protein to last you until next Christmas!
All you need now is some company .
"Why isn't there any in my bowl?"
All photos provided by my wife
I stumbled upon this article on WebMD this morning that reviewed a recent study showing that if 40 year old women didn't watch what they ate they were at risk for serious weight gain in the future. The researchers found that the women who consciously "ate less" were able to prevent this mid-life weight-gain.
The so-called "emotional eating" was the usual cause of the weight gain over-time, and the researchers urged that women try to deal with emotionally stressful times in ways other than "binge-eating".
Although the researchers acknowledged that binge eating is more likely to occur in people who restrict their food intake, they did not see any evidence of this in this study.
Unfortunately, the article did not mention any important biomarkers or signs of impaired health that occur when women knowingly restrict their food.
Unfortunately it did not mention the nutrient intake of the various groups in the study, just weight gain.
A study done at the University of British Columbia found that women who practiced dietary restraint, excreted significantly higher levels of urinary cortisol.
Cortisol, which is a marker for stress may be related to the constant stress of always monitoring your food intake, not a very fun way to live.
If you want some better advice on eating nutrient rich food and enjoying every bite of it, go here.
Just don't drool on your computer too much.
Well it looks like that there are some new phytochemicals that have been found that may help in the treatment of breast cancer...hooray?
These phytochemicals found mainly in extra-virgin olive oil or olives have been shown to inhibit some proteins that are involved in breast cancer. Now, researchers want to extract them and hopefully apply them as breast cancer treatment drugs; putting them on the last line of defence as opposed to being on the preventative front-line.
Now if there is anything that we have learned from isolating nutrients, antioxidants and other phytochemicals from food, they just do not work the same way at preventing disease after being taken out of "context"!
And I don't expect whatever trials that follow these isolated chemicals to be any different.
Luckily, these phytochemicals are still intact if you choose to use extra-virgin olive oil as it is not refined so severely as pure or virgin olive oil.
Therefore, please enjoy this quick and easy recipe for some delicious Greek salad that I made last week! (not my video)
It's loaded with all of the aforementioned nutrients and is also packed with extra-yummy tastiness particles.
Ciao!
Now we all know that meat is expensive per pound due to the amount of energy, land and water that are required to mass produce it.
But there are many other ways to get the protein we need along with a hefty dose of fibre, loads of antioxidants and tonnes of vitamins and minerals.
The best replacements for meat out there are legumes, beans, pulses or whatever else you want to call them. They are all readily available at your grocery store and at a cost substantially cheaper than most meat products.
So during these "tough economic times" here is a recipe I found in an old fitness magazine that we can all enjoy (except for anyone in sniffing distance while you digest the loads of healthy fibre):
Bean Salad:
1-Can of Whole Green Beans
1-Can Garbanzo Beans (chick peas)
1-Can Kidney Beans
1-Cup of Whole Kernel Corn (frozen or canned)
1-Medium Onion (Chopped)
1/2 Cup of Salad Dressing (Home made is best): Something southwestern like is ideal
1/2 Cup of Cheddar Cheese (Shredded)
Directions:
Mix (stir) the beans, corn and onion in a bowl with the salad dressing in a large bowl and then refrigerate it. You can eat it right away, but if you let it marinate over night it tastes so much better!
When ready to serve, spoon the bean mix onto some lettuce leaves and grate the cheddar cheese on top. You'll be amazed at how good it actually tastes and how full you are after wards.
And hopefully you're beans don't end up looking like this:
Ever since I was a young boy I have been getting home made pizza every single Friday night. This was until I moved out to go to University; where, obviously I ate pizza much more often than that! Although it was not home made and not quite up to the calibre that I used to enjoy at home. Now that I am totally out of the nest with my beautiful fiance (I'm pretty sure she might one day read this BLOG), we have also taken up the tradition of creating our own pizza masterpieces every Friday night when we get home from work and sit down to watch a movie or another couple episodes of 'Allo Allo' on DVD. A nice little tradition that I am sure will be continued for some time to come!
image found here
Now to the nitty-gritty... This pizza is simple and I originally found the recipe for the dough here. It takes an hour and a half until the dough is ready. After that, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and begin the preparation of the goodies to throw on to the pizza! You spread out the dough on a circular cookie sheet for 8 massive pieces or use a large cookie sheet and you can get 15 nicely sized rectangular pieces. As an added bonus: you now have several future meals taken care of [or two if you are like my fiance and I].
I usually like to use tomato sauce as the base of the pizza, but sometimes I like to spice it up with a little salsa. I will throw on some oregano and crushed garlic into the tomato sauce so it smells extra delicious when it goes in to the oven. I then place a layer of fresh uncooked spinach on to the tomato sauce to help bump up the nutritional punch.
As for toppings: I like to fry up some cubed pieces of two chicken breasts along with an onion and a handful of mushrooms. Make sure that the chicken is not overcooked or it will become dry when it is baked in the oven. Fry the onions in some oil with the mushrooms until they caramelize and then throw them all on the pizza with some sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes and cover them all in mozzarella cheese which is covered in parmesan.
Oh I can taste it now! When the oven has heated up, toss in the pizza, it should approximately 20 minutes to bake. I like the cheese to be slightly browning with the crust nice and soft, a delectable combination! Now, the beauty of pizza is that there are millions of combinations, the only complication is going to be deciding what movie to watch and what type of wine will you be enjoying with it?
Bon Appetit!
image found here
Here is the nutritional information for the entire pizza: so you can divide the totals by however many slices you have chopped the pizza into.
DIRECTIONS:
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