Tag: Nutrition

SUNSHINE

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Today was a good day!  For a few reason:

1. I went to the gym and ran (along with a 30 minute elliptical date with Oprah’s O Magazine)!  After 2 weeks off from running to let my knees rest from excruciating pain, I ran 1 mile today!  Pain free!  I’m starting slow again to prevent any other form of injury!

2.  We had SUNSHINE!!!! It was amazing!! I hadn’t seen the sun in weeks!  (No joke!)  I walked to class with a smile on my face!  Great start to the day!

3.  Finished all my reading for this week and tomorrow I’m getting ahead and starting on next week’s!  Woo!  This work day plan is working well so far!

4. Delicious lunch! Left over eggplant parmesan under the broccoli, along with fruit and veggies.  Not photographed is a homemade granola bar!

5.  Grocery Store: Green Star Coop and Wegman’s! Bought the usual spinach, carrots, etc.  But also picked up a few new goodies to try:

Coconut oil!  I’ve heard about all the health benefits and today I broke down and bought some!  I can’t wait to try it!  I hope it helps clear up my dry skin on my face!!

Wheat Berries, Barley and more Chia seeds!

New Almond Butter that was on sale!  I can’t wait to try this brand!  I hope it’s good!  I’m pretty particular about my almond butter!

6.  Recipe for tomorrow is in the works!  Here’s a sneak peek!

Black eyed peas soakin’ over night…

Now I’m off to finish up a movie and hit the hay!  I hope tomorrow has sunshine too!!  Have a great night!!

Lastly, don’t forget to go over to Mara‘s blog and vote for my penguin olives for the Cute Food Saturday Cuteiversary contest!!

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

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Today was a surprisingly good day!  Despite the fact that my headache never went away, I managed to get a lot of reading done and have a great class (we talked about land titling and home ownership which for some reason I think is a really interesting topic).

I got home this evening slightly hungry but excited to make this dish.  As usual, I found this recipe for Eggplant Parmesan a LOOOONG time ago, bookmarked it and decided to make it now.

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

adapted from Eggs on Sunday’s Eggplant Parmesan
1 eggplant, sliced
1 egg
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 can of diced tomatoes (plain or Italian seasoned works too)
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tbsp olive oil
Cayenne to taste (I used about 1/4 tsp)
1 cup ricotta
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
1 tbsp fresh chopped basil (more if you’d like)
A few slices of fresh mozzarella

I’ve never really cooked eggplant, so this was a first for me.  My sister’s friend once told me to put a lot of salt on eggplant and let it sit for a while then rinse it and pat dry, but I wasn’t really sure what that meant.  This recipe confirmed…

Heavily salt the sliced eggplant on both sides, let stand for 15-20 minutes.  Then rinse and pat dry.  It doesn’t yield salty eggplant, just reduced the water content, which apparently tastes better?

After you’ve salted, rinsed and dried your eggplant you need to bread it.  Put one egg (beaten) in a shallow bowl.  In another bowl, combine bread crumbs italian seasoning and parmesan cheese.

Dip each slice into the egg then into the bread crumb mixture and place on a greased baking sheet.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, flip and baked for another 15 minutes.

In the meantime, make your sauce.  Heat the oil, add the onions, garlic and cayenne and cook for about 5 minutes.  Then add the can of diced tomatoes and cook for about 15-20 minutes until liquid has reduced and sauce is thick. In the meantime, combine the ricotta, basil and parmesan in a bowl, set aside.

When the eggplant is ready and your sauce is reduced, you are ready to assemble it all!

Pour 1/3 of the sauce into the bottom of a baking dish.

Next do a layer of eggplant slices.

Then spread on all the ricotta mixture.

Then the next 1/3 of your sauce and the rest of the eggplant slices.

Finish off with the remaining sauce and the mozzarella.  I went kind of light on the cheese since I figured the huge amounts of ricotta was plenty of cheese!

Bake at 425 for about 15-20 minutes.  Serve and enjoy!  Makes 4 good sized servings!  I wish I had a broiler because bubbly burnt cheese is delicious!  If you make this I would suggest putting it under the broiler for a few minutes for crispy goodness!

DELICIOUS!

Perfect ending to my day!  I love the crispiness of the eggplant without the oiliness of typical fried eggplant parmesan!

Are you an eggplant fan?

Tonight, I really want to catch up on Lost since I didn’t get to watch it last night!  I’m also considering making some granola bars for good afternoon snacks to have on hand.  What are your relaxation plans for the evening??

Have a great night!

I’m Nutty!

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First, Happy March!

Second, Happy Birthday to my brother and my grandma!

On to food….

Naturally Nutty Cinnamon Vanilla Sunflower Butter arrived today!

I got 2 HUGE jars for $7.00 + free shipping through Kath’s Open Sky deal!

So far I’ve tried it on an apple and on my finger.

Can’t wait to try it tomorrow on my oats!

Have you tried this stuff?!?  Soooo good!  I really want to try the other flavors but I haven’t seen it in stores at all.

Ahh I’m a nut butter fiend!

Lastly, Don’t forget to vote my for olive penguins on Mara‘s blog (just on the side bar, click me and vote, no need to comment!) for the Cuteiversary Contest!

Lovely fella is leaving tomorrow 😦  Trying to enjoy the last bit of time we have together for a while… he wants to go to Moosewood… I’ll keep you posted!

Have a great night!

Carrot Cake Oatmeal

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My bananas aren’t ripe 😦

I’m a banana fan as I’ve mentioned in the past.  I usually have at least one per day sliced up in my oats or on toast or in a smoothie.  The riper the better!  Today my bananas are just yellow.  While I could have enjoyed it on a piece of toast, I really wanted oatmeal but I try to use really ripe bananas in my oats.  I guess because of the sugar breakdown as they ripen, they’re sweeter when riper?

Point being… my bananas were not quite ready for oats.  Then I remembered Christie‘s Carrot Cake Oat Bran I read about yesterday and decided to recreate my own!

My combo contained:

1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill 8 Grain Hot Cereal (or oats or oat bran)
1 carrot, finely grated
lots of cinnamon
dash of allspice
squirt of vanilla extract
topped with plain greek yogurt, agave nectar and a few pieces of walnuts

Pretty delicious!  Interesting way to get a veggie in!

Still… nothing beats the creamy sweetness my sliced banana adds to my oats!  I’m going to try this again but next time with a banana as a sweetener instead of agaven nectar!

Thanks for the inspiration, Christie!

Today is another busy day!  Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!  But something fun…Tonight I’m baking for a faculty/student mixer!  I’m a little concerned because it was advertised as such: “Come mingle with faculty! Enjoy tea and coffee! Savor Karla’s delicious baked goods!” … just a little pressure to make sure it’s great!

See you tonight for some baking!!

Food Fight

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Yesterday was the longest day ever!  After we last “spoke,” I went to class, prepared for my discussion section, had discussion section (went really well for the first time yesterday woo!), went to class again, met with a professor, worked on the demographic forecast from hell and went to see Food Fight!

Ok, let me tell you a bit about Food Fight.

It was an interesting documentary about local/slow food.  The documentary centered largely around the local food movement started by Alice Waters in Berkeley.  Watching the documentary was sort of exciting since a lot of it took place in Berkeley and a lot of the interviews were done in Chez Panisse (remember when I went in January?).

Basically, the documentary critiqued the federal government for promoting industrialized agriculture through the use of agricultural subsidies for specific products and consequently degrading the quality of our produce.

I thought this was really interesting.  It really got me thinking about who to “blame.”  I know some people don’t agree with this, but I have a hard time blaming the federal government or specific people for things.  I think things need to be looked at in the context of a larger system.  While this film promoted local farming, which I agree is great, I was torn because I understand the rationale for industrial agriculture.

In economic terms, I understand that industrial agriculture creates economies of scale which are more efficient.  However, there is a disregard for quality.

I guess what I took from this documentary was nothing particularly new: our food production system needs to change.

For me, the larger understanding I gained is that it’s easy to assign blame to the federal government or particular people (yesterday in my discussion section, a girl said she “hates Earl Butz,” which I think is a little crazy), but I think it’s important to understand the underlying assumptions and motivations to what people do.  I understand that lobbyists are an important part of this mix, and I’m not saying that this is okay.

Local food is a little elitist and expensive.  A lot of chefs in the documentary admitted it, which I thought was quite refreshing.  While they talked a bit about poverty and accessibility, I would like to see an entire documentary on access to good food by the poor.  Local and organic isn’t cheap, I’d be interested to know how we can change that.  Is “voting with your fork” enough?

Anyway, I recommend the documentary.  Unlike, Food Inc. and other documentaries on local/sustainable food, this documentary is centered on the idea of good tasting food, as in eat local/organic because it tastes good.  I thought this was an interesting approach.

Have you heard of Food Fight?  Any interests or thoughts?

Have a fantastic day!!

Taste the Rainbow

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Happy Tuesday!!

Did you all hear about Michelle Obama’s Campaign Against Childhood Obesity?

What do you think of this new Let’s Move campaign?

I had some colorful eats today and luckily they DID NOT include any of this:

For lunch, I had a DELICIOUS, COLORFUL and HUGE salad!

Isn’t it bright?! Lettuce, Cucumbers, Tomato, Carrot Ribbons and a sliced up string cheese with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar as dressing.  Along with a Morningstar Sausage Patty taco, which you’ve seen so here’s part of the tortilla process:

I would die without a gas stove!

After my scrumptious lunch, I went to class then I worked on Econ and Methods problem sets with people.  Ugh I need to learn to be more patient!

Then the highlight of the evening.. Dinner was pretty much the epitome of a fake and delicious makeover!

You know chicken parmesan? Served as such…

Forget that!  Mine was a million times better!

Boca Spicy Chik’n Patty topped with marinara sauce and cottage cheese (soo good!  If you’ve never mixed marinara and cottage cheese… go try it now! Creamy and delicious!), served with a side of spaghetti squash and broccoli, then sprinkled with some grated pecorino romano for good measure.

A dinner entree of Chicken Parmigiana at Macaroni Grill will set you back 1650 calories, 98g of fat and 2500mg of sodium!  Isn’t that nuts!

My version had a grand total of 405 calories and 12g of fat!  Much better and just as tasty and voluminous! Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of pasta (maybe because I didn’t grow up eating it?) but I understand that a lot of people do like it.  A serving of pasta still would make this a million times healthier than a restaurant version!

What’s your favorite at home dish makeover?

Ahhh Lost is on in a little over half an hour!  I have to read now so I can then glue myself to the TV!

Have a fabulous night!!