Foods that are Super!

One of the things I'm learning more about these days is superfoods. Wikipedia defines Superfood as "a term sometimes used to describe food with high phytonutrient content that some may believe confers health benefits as a result". Different websites have slightly different lists of what are considered superfoods, and I'll let you research that yourself, but here is the list I've put together:

• apples
• avacado
• beans
  
• blueberries
• broccoli
• brown rice
• butternut squash
• cinnamon
• dark chocolate
• extra virgin olive oil
• garlic
• honey
• kiwi
• oats
• onions
• oranges
• pomegranate
• pumpkin
• wild salmon
• soy
  
• spinach
• sweet potatoes
• tea
• tomatoes
• turkey breast
• walnuts
• yogurt

Wow, that's a long list. Yesterday, I printed it and put it right on the fridge, so I can always be aware of what I need to be eating a little of as much as possible. I've been eating some of these foods right along, without realizing the great benefits of the foods. The other morning I made a breakfast of pomegranate blueberry yogurt with oats mixed in, and a glass of pomegranate blueberry juice to go with it. This was before I even knew that all four were on the list!



This is one of my lunches I had during the week. It was more of that yummy Earthgrains bread with some cucumber (from the garden!), mayo and turkey and a side of apple and grapes. It was delicious!


Today, I had LOTS of superfoods on my menu! After a breakfast of my now typical microwaved eggs and toast, I made a lunch of brown rice, with some steamed veggies, including broccoli, and mixed in some cheese and some homemade salsa, which of course, was made with tomatoes. After lunch I had a couple of pieces of dark chocolate, which normally I would consider cheating but HA! It's on the list!! Tonight for dinner we made some thin steaks, stuffed with spinach, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, portobello mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and broiled in the oven for a few minutes. We had a side of some red skinned mashed potatoes, and left over spinach mix.





We pretty much hit the superfoods jackpot with that dinner!!

Tomorrow we have plans to hit the farmers market, the big Lowes Foods shopping trip, then hopefully the BEACH!! Cross your fingers for some sun!! Off to watch a movie and cuddle with the hubby! Good night!

You can do it, too!! Organic shopping at Lowes Foods

I haven't had too much to say this week, since the kids are home and that kind of limits what yummy food we get to experiment with. We try to appease Dalton, the picky one, with foods he'll eat while he's home, so it gets a bit repetitive. Yesterday was a good day for me, foodwise. I had some of my microwaved eggs and cheese with a toasted slice of my homemade bread machine bread for breakfast. For lunch I had a cucumber (from the garden) and turkey sandwich on the yummy Earthgrains bread we got for FREE at Bilo last week. If you bought 2lbs of produce (duh, of course we did) you get a loaf for free. We opted for the Wheatberry, and it may the best bread I've had, ever. Not sure how much it is to buy, but I'll be checking into it! I finished off lunch with an apple and some grapes. All that held me over until dinner, where we grilled chicken with our White Alabama Sauce, grilled potatoes and sauteed fresh spinach and portobello mushrooms. YUM!! I actually only ate the veggies!

Anyway, since I haven't had a lot to say about what we're eating, I decided I'm going to do a little learning. We spend so much time focused on shopping, and sales, and buying new foods, that I thought I needed to learn a bit about the stores we go to. A normal weekend shopping trip for us has become going to the farmer's market, Lowes Foods, BiLo and Food Lion, to hit all the sales. We get the fliers, plan menus for the week, make our lists and hit the road. I'm very surprised at how much I LOVE to grocery shop, when it used to be such a chore!!

Yesterday I spent A LOT of time on the Lowes Foods website, and learned a lot. The thing I love most about Lowes Foods,is that they carry an inexpensive line of natural and organic products, called Full Circle Foods. Most of this stuff is only 10 cents or so more expensive than the regular products, and is sold right along side of the regular ones, so you don't have to shop in that exclusive, expensive organic section. I was really surprised at the huge selection they offer, and I'm so glad that people like me can benefit from lower priced products that are so good for us! Other grocery stores are also beginning to offer this, so don't be afraid to try it out when you see the organic label!

We haven't spent much time actually browsing in this store, and at first glance, it seems pricier than the others we go to. However, the website offers up tons of sales that you don't get in the store. They have a page on their site called Instasave. You log in with your member card, click on the sales you want to take part of, and they automatically get applied to your card. When you get to the store, the savings are automatically there, and not available for the general public. I've got my list for this week, and am saving nearly $20 that other people won't be saving!

I was also impressed with the Lowes Foods Community/Charity work section of the web page. They seem to do a lot with the communities that they do business with, so that's a little more incentive for me to want to shop with them.

Ok, I feel like a Lowes Foods commercial!! We'll be doing our primary shopping at this store this week, just to check it out a little more in person. I will report back! Expect some "reviews" of the other stores we shop at - coming soon - including the farmer's market!

Going along with some of the theme of today's blog, take a minute to read this article. It's about not being afraid of your "diet". By diet I don't mean - way to lose weight - but just the daily foods you eat and the lifestyle that goes with it. This article talks about eating healthy, but that it's ok to stray from your "plan". It's a good one, written by Kath Eats blogger, Kath, who I read every day!

Ok, I think I've made up for the last few days of not blogging much! I'm leaving work now (yes, I posted this at work..oops) and headed home to RELAX, I hope!! Spaghetti on the menu tonight...boring!

I'm such a slacker!

So the weekend got REALLY busy and I haven't blogged AT ALL! I'm afraid I'll get out of the habit, so I'll just fill in some blanks about the last few days and start right on track tomorrow!

Thursday I got a visit from my long-time friend from elementary and high school, Alice, and her boyfriend Shawn. They got here before I got out of work. We grilled the last steaks we had in the freezer and had some grilled potatoes/broccoli/mushrooms and grilled corn. We topped it off with some Mothership Wit. I don't think Alice was much of a fan, but the rest of us enjoyed it! We found out that Shawn also used to skate, and knew alot of the same people as Lucas did back in the day, and they were like long lost friends. I'm really glad they got along as great as they did! Next it was off to House of Blues for a Rancid show! It was even better than last year, I think! We stayed through the Rise Against set, which I was NOT impressed with, nor was I impressed with the sold out show full of sweaty, slimy, stinky guys. Guess I'm getting old.

The next day I worked a bit, then we hit the beach for a bit before the storms came. Look at the awesome picture my sister got of the clouds coming in on the beach:



We went home that night and did nothing, we were so tired from the night before. Dinner was an organic pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, zuchinni and mushrooms.

Saturday we invited my sister and her kids, and our friend Ryan for some dinner, beers and Wii. We grilled some turkey sausages and made a macaroni salad. I was disappointed that we couldn't get the organic pasta at Bilo - but I'll remember that for next time! We played Wii until the wee hours and finally went to sleep - LATE!

Sunday brought a day of cooking, as is becoming the norm. I made Rocky, our best man from our wedding, a batch of the mac&cheese that he loves, and added some bacon for him. The bread this week was cheating a bit. Nathan requested plain old white bread machine bread (which we sliced and toasted tonight and it's delicious!) I also made some peanut butter cookies (also cheated-pillsbury ready made Simply Peanut Butter cookies). We had the New York Style pizzas again, and I have to say, the first night we had them, I enjoyed them much more! I think freezing the dough was not the best idea!

Back to work today, and it was a long one! Tonight we just had turkey burgers and leftover macaroni salad...maybe we'll get more interesting tomorrow - it's not as easy when the kids are home!!

A little Rancid to take you out.....good night!

Not the cucumbers!!!!

Yes, we've been infiltrated. The bugs have crossed enemy lines and have killed off my cucumber. I was out there just yesterday and everything was fine! Tonight, the plants were covered with bugs and three large cucumbers had been drilled into and turned yellow. All overnight! I'm so disappointed! So, we doused everything with the organic pesticide and are hoping for the best. The peas are also already lost, but I had given up one them already. The cucumbers were thriving! So, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the bugs wander into oblivion. On a good note, we FINALLY have tomatoes growing, and I can't wait to get a good harvest!! Also, we discovered that the jalapenos that were turning red aren't problematic, just mature. Apparently jalapenos are usually picked when they aren't quite ripe, and that's why we're used to seeing green. Anyway, the peppers are fine!

Today was a day for food! This morning I had my now regular microwaved scrambled eggs with tomato and a slice of wheat toast. Snack was some delicious banana chips. The boss took us to lunch at a Thai restaurant. I had sushi - a mexican roll and a california roll. I was so stuffed that I couldn't make dinner when I got home! Lucas had to suffer and wait, but while we waited, we watched a movie that I had caught wind of over on the Joe Hill message boards. See below:



I would have lived without watching it, but I've seen worse. Definitely different.

Finally, we got around to making dinner. Tonight was some clean-out-the-freezer stuff. We had two peices of flounder and about a cup of scallops. We grilled the flounder, and some broccoli, and a box of Uncle Bens wild rice with sun dried tomatoes. I sauteed the scallops and threw them in the rice, along with some bigger sundried tomatoes that we had bought for the pizzas the other night, but forgot about. Add a glass of Sam Adams Summer Ale, and you've got another great meal!


I'm probably calling it a night very soon. A little Harry Potter and then sleep!

Mashed potatoes are good......

Especially when they're stuffed inside of a baked potato! Tonight we had twice baked potatoes with a mushroom, onion, jalapeno and bacon topping, and grilled zucchini and squash on the side.

I bought GIANT baking potatoes, microwaved them, scooped them, mixed the scoopings with some sour cream, milk, butter and salt and pepper and replaced the potato into it's shell. In the oven at 350 for 20 minutes and voila, twice baked potatoes! With about 4 minutes to go I added a few shreds of monterey jack cheese to melt on top. In the meantime I made a blend of veggies for a topping, and fried some bacon to crumble on top. The veggie topping started with some garlic and crushed red pepper browned in some olive oil. Add chopped portobello mushroom, red onion, jalapenos from the garden, a little bit of chicken stock and a little bit of cream and you get a saucy, spicy, veggie topping. We sliced and grilled the zucchini and squash for about ten minutes. It was all delicious, as always!!



We topped dinner off with a Sam Adams Summer Ale. It's as good as it looks!

Not much else to say about today. I'm pretty wiped out after the last couple of crazy days at work. I think I'm going to settle in and watch the end of the season premiere of Hell's Kitchen, and call it a night!!

What's for dinner tonight?

Tonight is Shrimp Tacos with Cilantro-Lime Sour Cream! So yummmy!! I added some diced cucumber and banana pepper straight out of tonight's harvest of the garden. The avacado we used wasn't super-ripe, but added a great texture to the dish, and the cucumber was a cool, softer touch. We doubled the recipe and used burrito shells rather than the fried corn tortillas. We also took the shortcut of using pre-cooked shrimp, so it didn't get to marinade in the spicy olive oil, but we cooked it for the five minutes and it was still delicious. My stomach is actually starting to growl again thinking about it!! The picture in the link is awesome - here's our version:



Here's what happens when you use too much cilantro lime sauce mixed with too much shrimp sauce from the pan:



I think dessert will be some Breyer's vanilla ice cream (ALL NATURAL!!) with some strawberries and banana added to it...yummmmm

Here's in interesting article to read about not being afraid of restaurants.

That's all I have for tonight! Going to get some ice cream now!!

Squash bugs, sit-ups and new music!

I was thinking that maybe anyone reading this may not want to read ONLY about what we're eating. Since this blog is about the "newlyweds learning about life, love and happiness", I thought I'd add a little variety about life today.

One of the things we've learned about gardening this year, is that there are LOTS of different bugs that are specific to the plants they attack, that we had no idea existed. Our cabbage, beans, peas and squash were ravaged by pests before we could figure out what to do about them. A few weeks after the attacks started, we found this organic pesticide recipe online. It did the trick with getting rid of the bugs on the cabbage and beans, but not soon enough. We only have one cabbage plant that may or may not still make it. The jury is still out on the beans. There's lots of new growth, and not a bug to be found, but not much going on with them, either. The pests on the peas were just discovered yesterday, so we haven't done much with them yet. We totally lost the squash though. However, I came across some ideas here for getting rid of the squash bugs. I can't wait until next year to try the ideas!

On another subject, Lucas has been kicking some butt with this new push-ups challenge he's doing. He's up to 40 a day now. I keep talking about doing the sit-up challenge, but haven't done it yet. I think tonight I need to give it a shot! I'd love to have the ambition to start running, or at least walking, but I just can't get myself to do it! Lucas has inspired me to start the sit-ups though...so I'll get moving on it!

Finally, I just want to introduce one of my favorite new artists! Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Ray LaMontagne!

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Sandwich with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce (AND DIP!)

Grilled Portobello Mushroom Sandwich with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce
makes two sandwiches

Ingredients:
• 2 portobello mushroom caps
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• Monterey Jack cheese
• baby spinach leaves
• Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce (below)
• hamburger bun or Kaiser roll (we used onions rolls – any will work)

Preparation Instructions:

1. Preheat your grill.
2. In the meantime, wash all of your veggies. Remove the stem from the portobello mushroom caps, Wash the spinach and set it aside, and slice the cheese.
3. Place the portobello mushroom caps upside down on a plate and sprinkle them liberally with extra virgin olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Make sure they’re nice and wet, so that they can soak up all of that juice as they cook.
4. When the grill is hot, carefully transfer the portobello mushroom caps to the grill without spilling their contents. Add the cheese to start melting.
5. Watch the mushroom cap carefully. When it starts to blacken and wrinkle around the outside, check the middle with a fork. If the cap is very soft and pliant, and the fork sinks in without any resistance, it is done. Take it off of the grill.
7. Meanwhile, right before the mushrooms get done, toast the bun or Kaiser roll on the grill.
8. When everything is done, spread some Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce on both sides of the bun. Assemble the sandwich with the mushroom and the baby spinach leaves. Add a little salt and pepper if needed. Enjoy!


Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce

• 1 large red bell peppers
• 1 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1/8 cup fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• ¾ cups half-and-half
• 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat broiler. Halve the red pepper and remove the seeds. Lightly coat the red pepper with olive oil. Grill pepper under the broiler until the skin is blackened, and the flesh has softened slightly. Place the pepper in a paper bag or resealable plastic bag to cool for approximately 30 minutes.
2. Remove the skin from the pepper (the skin should come off the pepper easily now). Cut pepper into small pieces.
3. In a skillet, cook and stir the garlic, basil, and red peppers in the olive oil over medium heat. Cook for 10 minutes, so that the flavors mix.
4. Place mixture in blender (careful it is hot), and puree to desired consistency. Return puree to skillet, and reheat to a boil. Stir in the half-and-half and the Romano cheese; cook and stir until the cheese melts. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 5 minutes or until thick.

Serve as is, or you can mix this with one part pepper sauce, two parts sour cream for a delicious vegetable/chip dip.

A year ago today....

I met the man of my dreams. We talked about spending the day together and then going to the place we met to have some drinks with some friends, in honor of the day. What I love about who we are in our lives right now, is that we chose to stay home and clean up the house and work on projects and cook and garden rather than going to the bar. I think spending the day together like we did gave more meaning to this last year than anything else could have. We are truly lucky to have found each other, and to have realized what we found, when we did.

So, the day started with me playing on the computer and not wanting to do much of ANYTHING! We decided to finally roll out of bed and have some juice and eggs. I made the juice, Lucas made the eggs, which were delicious!!! The juice today was a new one. It had cucumbers, carrots, apple and lemon. I have to say, I was NOT a fan. Drinking a cucumber just doesn't feel right. I drank half of mine and gave the rest to Lucas, and opted for the Pomegranate Blueberry juice that I bought at the store the day before. He, however, loved the juice and drank it all down - to wash down the eggs he made, mixed with all the veggies from last night's pizza and some monterey jack cheese. Top it off with a slice of wheat toast, and it's one great breakfast!



House cleaning got done and then we decided on turkey burgers and a spinach, mushroom, olive salad for lunch. We melted some havarti cheese on the burgers and I used our homemade salsa from last week as a salad dressing/condiment. Lucas sprayed a little balsamic vinegar dressing on his salad. This all looked really awesome, but I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture first!

We headed out and cleaned up the back yard, after yesterday's mowing, and puttered around the garden a bit, harvesting some cucumbers and discovering that we have some BABY watermelons growing!! We then headed out front to weed the front flower beds. Next we came inside to watch a little zombie movie - perfect way to spend the "anniversary"...hehehe.

Once the movie was done, I was back in the kitchen. First I prepped the peppers for roasting and made some fresh lemonade. First time - so some adjustments were made to the recipes I found. Came out yummy in the end. Then on to the Banana Blueberry Bread. I only changed one thing in this recipe, I got rid of the sugar and added the same amount of honey, instead. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on the counter cooling and looks great. I will report back!

Dinner was Grilled Portobello Mushrooms with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce and Spinach on a toasted onion roll and a side of fresh hash browns. I do believe that this dinner beat last night's dinner!!



The picture definitely doesn't look as good as it tasted...but I never claimed to be a photographer!

As I was cleaning up after dinner, I realized that the leftover red pepper sauce would make an awesome dip when mixed with sour cream. I mixed some up, and that'll be our snack tomorrow night, maybe!

I'll be back to post the recipe for dinner and for the dip, but right now I've got to get off of here and watch True Blood!!! Sunday means True Blood, which is great, but True Blood means it's Sunday night and the weekend is over...not so great!

A Perfect Saturday

Saturday was spent mostly doing nothing, which made it perfect. We woke up VERY late, laid around, and eventually started planning this weeks menu and grocery list. I love that it's becoming a project for us - finding new recipes, trying our best to buy all natural. This week, more than half of the list was from the produce department. The rest was dairy, breads and just a couple of things in between. When I got home to put groceries away, the only thing that went in the cupboard was the popcorn! Everything else was fresh and to be kept in the fridge. For the first time, all the veggies and fruit didn't fit in the crisper, so now the shelves are overflowing with it! When we got home we went to check out the garden, which is becoming jungle like! The watermelon is literally taking over the whole right side.



The tomato plants are taller than me, but have yet to produce even one tomato!



Our compost pile is probably the prettiest, most useful compost pile ever! We have pretty purple flowers growing out of it, and some kind of vegetable plant, that's even blooming. I'm assuming its from the seed of something we threw away in there, but I'm not sure yet what it is. The leaves don't match any of the plants currently in my real garden, so I guess we'll just wait to see what it produces.



The compost part is definitely working though! That soil is probably better for whatever is growing in it than what's in the garden, which is very sandy. I'll be thrilled to use the compost on next year's garden!

We ate pretty well all day. Lucas had a bagel for breakfast, and I made some scrambled eggs with tomato and some Hormel All Natural salami mixed in. I made a batch of fresh apple carrot juice and it was delicious! Lunch was a turkey, lettuce, mayo sandwich and some pretzels. Then there was dinner. We planned to make a White Pizza, NYC style. First thing I learned last night was that I need to ALWAYS read the recipe before I try to make it. I had no idea that the dough was supposed to set overnight. We went ahead and used one of the balls anyway, and hoped for the best. Rather than just a plain cheese pizza as the recipe calls for, we added: roasted red peppers, portabello mushrooms, chicken, broccoli, black olives and a banana pepper from our garden.


The picture just doesn't do it justice. It was one of the best meals I've ever made!! We're going to play with the recipe for next time - a little less ricotta and a little more mozzarella and spice.

Well, off to start the day. Today is exactly one year from the day we met, and we plan to have a couple of drinks with friends this afternoon at the place we met. Other than that, housecleaning, some fresh lemonade and a (hopefully) delicious loaf of banana blueberry bread are on the schedule!!!

A day late...

I did SO well yesterday with my menu! Yesterday started with delicious microwaved eggs with tomatoes and a piece of Nature's Own Honey Wheat bread. I had no idea how easy, and good, microwaved eggs would be for a work breakfast! I had that with some Tropicana oj and some Lipton berry tea.

Lunch was brown rice (again in the microwave, didn't work out as well as the eggs - must adjust the time!) mixed with some of our homemade salsa and cheese. I had a snack of my homemade applesauce oatmeal bread. I shared that with Liz and Scott and ended up sending Liz the recipe.

Dinner was a couple of leftover chicken pieces that we had in the fridge. We made it earlier in the week. We're now making all of our own bbq sauce, to avoid the corn syrup that's in most of the store bought kinds. This time we made a white Alabama style sauce. We threw those leftover pieces on the grill along with some sliced zucchini with olive oil and salt and pepper, some leftover baked potatoes sliced up with some red, orange and green peppers, wrapped in foil with butter, and topped off with some corn cobs. Everything came out delicious! Lucas got stuck cooking in a downpour, but moved the grill to the carport, and Nathan brought him an umbrella to bring the food in with. As we started eating, we decided we should have taken a picture of it all, because it looked so good...so pics may follow!

We ended the night with some poker, some Orville Redenbacher's All Natural Popcorn, some internet surfing and some Harry Potter. One good day...

Dinner tonight

One of my favorite blogs that I follow is about food. We've been, for the last 2 months or so, trying to eat all natural, or real or whole, foods. This means no preservatives, no additives, no fillers. It's made food become a very focal point in our lives. Grocery shopping becomes a game, and cooking and creating new meals is a great way for us to spend time together.

So, after 2 months of this, with small slip-ups here and there, I've thrown it all out the window the last couple of days. You'd be SO surprised to find what little tolerance you have for "junk" food once you've been eating this way. The other night, Nathan, my 10 year old, requested tuna casserole for dinner. I'm not a fan even before this new diet, but now I'm even less. I make the casserole out of canned tuna (good), egg noogles (not as good) and canned cream of mushroom and chicken soups (full of crap). Now, I could probably find better versions of all of the above, but haven't had a chance to yet. So, I mixed it all up, and we ate it. It did taste good, and there are worse things...you'll see...so I didn't get too down on myself.

Lunch was Friendly's. I did the best I could with a tuna melt on rye, with a side of fries. I have no idea what's in the tuna there, or the bread, or the fries for that matter, but that's what I had...

Last night we made patty melts. Now, we've been trying to stay away from red meat and pork, but will allow ourselves to have some a couple of times a month. These particular burgers were probably not the best meat we could eat. I sauteed some fresh mushrooms and a white onion. We put the pattys and veggies on grilled Nature's Own honey wheat bread (all natural!). Lucas did well by adding some monterey jack cheese, but I put on my weakness - american PROCESSED cheese. We had this with a side of fried potatoes. All natural but covered in greasy butter. We topped it off with a mix of canned peas and frozen corn, both leftovers. Ok, so looking back at it, it wasn't TOO much of a stray from what we're trying to do. I guess all the grease made me feel worse, especially on top of the Friendly's earlier in the day!

Today for lunch it was Zaxby's. My friend, Tara, who I haven't talked with in months said "let's go to Zaxby's! It will be free!" I thought I'd get a salad or something acceptable....no, the "free" thing was some fried chicken parmesan on greasy texas toast sandwich, with a sauce that claimed to be cheese. It was AWFUL. I immediately went back to work and ate an orange, just to taste something fresh!

So, I've failed this week. But it has made me realize how much I appreciate the changes we've made. Tonight for dinner, we had stuffed peppers - made with FRESH green, red and orange peppers, red onion, jalapeno, chayote squash and garlic, ground turkey (no artificial additives or preservatives, minimally processed), brown rice and organic tomato sauce. It was AMAZING!

I'm trying to plan my lunch menu for tomorrow, and I'm excited about trying to eat ALL fresh food!

Hello!

Ok, I'm just trying this out. It seems everyone else has a blog, so I'll see what all the fun is about....more to follow!