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Healthy Cooking

January 30, 2012 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 5 comments

Happy Monday! It truly is a happy one for me; I am starting on some fun new projects for work this week that you will undoubtedly be hearing about. We had a tiring weekend in Killington, VT (post to come!); I could not get to sleep for the life of me either night and promptly fell asleep upon arriving back home in Boston. I am hoping to build some good energy to put toward marathon training and work this week. And we have a meeting tonight to work on the details for our Boston Marathon fundraising party.

I’ve been cooking up all sorts of simple, healthy meals lately and thought I would share a couple today. The first features Pete & Gerry’s eggs from our Stone Hearth dinner last week. We actually already buy eggs from the Pete & Gerry’s brand, but at the dinner, I also received some of their heirloom eggs, these lovely light blue eggs below.

It’s so easy to build a meal around an egg, so for lunch one day I poked around the kitchen to see what I might eat. I started by making a half cup of wild rice from Minnesota. Wild rice, as you may know, is not rice at all, but is the grain from a grass-like plant that grows in and around the lakes in Minnesota. It’s black and brown and kind of chewy and nutty, and it makes a nutritious base for lots of recipes.

In this case, I topped the wild rice with crispy kale made by quickly cooking it in a little bit of olive oil in a pan. I also cooked one of the heirloom eggs at the same time and added that to the wild rice mix. I topped the whole thing with half of an avocado, some garlic powder, and nutritional yeast, and I had an amazing, filling lunch.

Another easy dish I made recently was a twist on orange shrimp. My lightened up version was sautéed, not fried or breaded, so the result was different but fresh and flavorful.

The saucy ingredients? Lots of fresh cilantro, a sprinkle of brown sugar, a pinch of curry paste, 1/4 cup of peanut butter, two cups of orange juice, and lots of sriracha.

A little sesame oil and soy sauce to taste.

All mixed up in one big pan with peeled and cleaned shrimp and heaps of broccoli. I simmered it to thicken the sauce, which didn’t really happen, so we went ahead and used spoons and forks for this dinner. I can literally still imagine the bursts of citrus, sweet, peanut butter, and cilantro, with a kick of spice.

I love meals that are pulled together with all sorts of random ingredients! We’ve been doing a pretty good job sticking to our healthy eating plan for the New Year, and although the meals are sometimes too simple to even be blog-able, we are feeling great!

Are you looking forward to anything this week?

Technorati Tags: eggs, Food, healthy, kale, recipe, shrimp, wild rice

Tags: eggs, Food, healthy, kale, recipe, shrimp, wild rice

Healthier Orange Shrimp and Broccoli

April 20, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 8 comments

Chicken or shrimp in orange sauce are two of my favorite dishes to order on the rare occasions that we get Chinese takeout. While I love the flavors, I do not love the way eating “fried and doused in sodium food” makes me feel.

Last week while waiting to treat myself to a manicure, I was browsing through Self magazine and came across a recipe for scallops marinated in orange juice and maple syrup, and I decided to use this idea as a base for dinner last night.

I started with two cups of orange juice; I used Trop 50, which tastes more like real orange juice to me than regular juice. I rarely drink juice that isn’t mixed with water, but I like this all on its own because it is not too sweet.

I mixed the orange juice with two heaping tablespoons of grated ginger and several teaspoons of maple syrup before pouring it over peeled and deveined shrimp. I hate deveining shrimp. It is one of the grossest tasks ever. Also, I should mention that our dishwasher started to melt mid-wash, so we have an overflow of dishes that need to be washed by hand making the whole meal-prepping process not very fun. I use a ton of dishes it turns out!

I marinated the shrimp for about an hour in the orange juice/maple syrup mixture and then got ready to get cookin’. I felt like something was missing. . . so I had to add some sriracha. Surprised?

This recipe also used something I don’t normally cook with, frozen vegetables. I tend to buy fresh, but with our crazy schedules, we end up throwing away a ton of food because I don’t get around to cooking it. Last week I made a grapefruit, beet, celery, ginger, carrot, apple, lettuce, lemon juice just to use up what was going bad. Frozen veggies are just as nutritious, more budget-friendly, and will last a long time. I definitely need to make it a priority to stock up on them.

I mixed the broccoli with the shrimp and orange sauce and set it on low to simmer away. Then I got started on my starch, a blend of harvest grains from Trader Joe’s that included Israeli couscous, orzo, baby garbanzo beans, and red quinoa.

This blend is inexpensive and so easy to make.

And it is so festive! I loved all of the colors and textures from the various grains and pastas. This blend is definitely something I will buy again.

Once the shrimp were cooked through and the sauce bubbling, I poured it down over the harvest grains, which soaked up a bunch of the sauce and made a nice little bed for the shrimp and vegetables.

I was really glad that I added the sriracha, as the sweet of the orange juice and maple syrup really made for a nice contrast. This was a quick dinner, and while it didn’t taste like Chinese takeout, it was a fun and flavorful weeknight option that made enough for a few lunches.

In other news, I am now working two days a week in an office on a variety of Marketing, PR, and Social Media projects, and I am back trying to figure out what to bring so I am not starving all day. My silly body seems to change its appetite mind all the time, and since it’s not really my office like a full time office would be, I kind of feel weird leaving anything there. I used to keep my office stocked with chia seeds, protein powder, milk, and all sorts of food. I guess I made myself comfortable! Smile

What are your work eating habits like? Do you keep a lot of snacks and things at work or with you at school?

Technorati Tags: broccoli, ginger, harvest grains, healthy recipes, orange juice, recipe, shrimp

Tags: broccoli, ginger, harvest grains, healthy recipes, orange juice, recipe, shrimp

Shrimp and “Grits” with Ginger BBQ Sauce

April 9, 2011 in Food, recipe by traveleatlove | 5 comments

Bags of frozen shrimp are one of my favorite kitchen staples, and they often lead to last minute meals that turn out pretty great. A few weeks ago, I bought molasses, anticipating using it in brown bread. My brown bread ended up not calling for molasses, but I started thinking of other recipes for this classic ingredient.

Spicy BBQ sauce was the first thing that came to mind. I started with about a cup of organic cider vinegar and several tablespoons of tomato paste.

Fun fact: my nana drinks organic apple cider vinegar. I can’t do it because I think it tastes gross, but she is rollin’ up on 97 this November, so she must be doing something right!

Cider vinegar makes a great base for a BBQ sauce. I mixed the tomato paste and vinegar in a pot with about a cup of water. I used the vinegar bottle as a vessel for the water to get as much flavoring from the vinegar as possible.

I brought the vinegar and tomato paste to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the paste, then added two large spoonfuls of molasses, about a teaspoon of garlic powder, and two large jalapenos, chopped.

Toward the end I also added about a tablespoon of grated ginger. I am obsessed with ginger these days, ginger in food, ginger tea, ginger beer in Dark & Stormy’s. Love it!

I made the sauce the night before finishing the dish to ensure the flavors all got together. It was divinely spicy and sweet with a tang from the vinegar.

When I was ready to cook dinner, I peeled and cleaned about two dozen shrimp.

Then I popped the shrimp into the sauce and let them hang out for about half an hour.

While the shrimp marinated, I got my “grits” going. I used the Trader Joe’s version of Cream of Wheat, a hot cereal I have been loving lately. I enjoy the texture SO much more than oatmeal, and I thought, why not add it to dinner?

I cooked up a pot of the wheat cereal, and in a separate pot cooked the shrimp in BBQ sauce. To serve, I spooned the cereal into bowls and topped it with heaping ladles of BBQ sauce and shrimp. The sauce sunk down into the soft, creamy cereal, flavoring it, making it a little soupy, and just becoming a bowl of spicy comfort.

I am still cold, even though the weather has gotten nicer, so dishes like this will likely be on the blog for a few more weeks.

What are your plans to enjoy the warmer temps this weekend?

Technorati Tags: BBQ, Food, recipe, sauce, shrimp