Quick (and Healthy) Dinners

The last two nights I've stuck to the healthy meals plan, even though I am seriously starting to crave some fattening food. Here are the last two dinners I made. Last night I made some salmon, which I marinated in a quick marinade (peanut oil, sesame oil, chili oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and pepper). I baked that at 375 for 10 minutes. While the salmon was marinating I baked a potato in the microwave and chopped up some veggies. I sauteed some mushrooms in a little bit of butter and garlic. I sauteed some zucchini in a little bit of peanut oil, salt, and red pepper flakes. It was about a 30 minute meal and there was enough to save half for another meal this week.

Tonight's meal was a little weird. I make a spinach salad that I really love with baby spinach, Sesame Ginger dressing and pancetta. I was really in the mood tonight for a BLT, but I don't have iceberg lettuce or bacon. I did have all the ingredients for the spinach salad, though, so I combined them to make what I call a Spinach Salad BLT. I had a package of pre-chopped pancetta and popped the pancetta in the oven at 400 for 7 minutes. While that cooked I put two slices of oatmeal bread in the toaster oven. Then I whipped up a quick salad dressing: peanut oil, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, and pepper. While the marinade is mostly oil, the dressing is equal parts oil and vinegar. Then I dressed the spinach and let it sit to soak in the dressing. I sliced up some tomatoes and put salt and pepper on them. Then I spread some mayo on the toast, put some pancetta bits on top, tomato slices on top of that and finished with the spinach salad. I had some pita chips and hummus as a side. I was a little wary of how this was going to come out, but it was actually really yummy. I would definitely make it again. I guess the healthy meals are going well. I just wish in between healthy meals I could have some chips and dip and easter chocolate and still be able to get into my pants. ::sigh::

Babies!

So as a BzzAgent I was alerted that there's this new movie coming out that I *might* like. If you know me, you know that I am baby obsessed and it's all I can do to not have a baby as soon as possible. But you know career goals and a need for money keep getting in the way. ::sigh:: So this new movie coming out has me very excited. I already spend many of my lunch breaks watching "A Baby Story" on TLC and this does it one better by looking at babies in different cultures! Check it out:

Healthy Lunches

So I finally had some free time today after I finished running my first batch of analyses. I ended up making some pasta salad and fruit salad for the week. The pasta salad recipe is from the food network: Whole Wheat Pasta Salad. I followed that recipe exactly. I made the fruit salad out of watermelon, strawberries, tangerine pieces and grapes. I always pour a little orange juice into my fruit salad to make some extra juice.

For lunch I grilled some spinach and feta chicken sausage and had the pasta and fruit salads as sides. My grocery store always has a variety of sausage flavors and this is one of my favorites.

Yes, that's mayo on the plate. I know it's not healthy, but I need to dip. Like I said I'm really a big sauce person. I'm still trying to work on healthy snacks. The meal thing has gone well so far (yea I know it's only been 3 days), but I find myself craving snacks during the day and plain almonds have not been cutting it. I'll keep you posted.

Exhausted From a Day of Running Analyses Dinner

So I've been working on my dissertation all afternoon (and was up early working on a midterm for my class). Hence I'm exhausted. Mentally drained. I wanted something quick and super easy. I picked up some swordfish yesterday and whipped up a quick marinade inspired by my stir-fry sauce (olive oil, chili oil, sesame oil, rice vinegar and soy sauce). Marinated the fish for about 15 minutes, then sprinkled with cracked pepper. Baked at 450 for 15 minutes.

While that was cooking I sliced up some hot peppers, onions and yellow squash. I cooked that in some peanut oil, salt, pepper, garlic and a splash of white wine.

Topped the swordfish with a mango salsa prepared by my grocery store. Dinner in 20 minutes. Given that I'll be up super early tomorrow continuing the dissertation analyses, that makes me a happy girl. Now I can spend the rest of the night watching LIFE (if you haven't seen it on Discovery Channel yet- You MUST!) and with some coffee flavored frozen yogurt for dessert.

Quick, Healthy Dessert

The original recipe called for figs, which I couldn't find- so I just used dried plums. Dried plums, with a dollop of ricotta cheese, topped with honey and crushed pistachios. It was a little tart, with the plums and ricotta, but I think you could make up for that by using more honey if you wanted it sweeter. All in all a quick and healthy dessert.

Stir-Fry

Quick post, since I'm writing as I'm cooking. For healthy dinner #1 I'm making stir-fry. I followed Pat's recipe (You know of the Neely's: the cutest tv cooking couple ever. They just seem so in love and use cooking as a bonding experience. I think they're adorable.): Chicken & Broccoli Stir Fry.

I added some extra veggies: zucchini and mushrooms. I also made a double batch of the sauce. (I love sauce. Plus I knew I was making rice and I like extra sauce to mix in with my rice.) I also added 1 tbsp of chili oil to the sauce, since I found a bottle in the Asian section of the grocery store today and thought it would be good extra spicy.

For a side I made Near East Sesame Ginger Rice Mix.

I paired it with a Cherry Wheat Sam Adams, since I had one at BWW the other night and it was magically delicious. (Sidenote: The Cherry Wheat did NOT mix well with the stir-fry. Hence I stuck it in the freezer for after dinner).

The rice was really moist and flavorful. The stir-fry was really good. The sauce thickened up really nicely and was spicy and delicious. Not sure if it really was the healthiest meal, but it had lots of veggies, so let me pretend.

The "Need to Button My Pants" Diet

So the past few weeks I have totally given up on my healthy eating habits. You can see that I haven't posted much in terms of recipes, mostly because I've been too lazy to cook. I have seriously eaten either Taco Bell (Nachos Bell Grande... with extra jalapenos) or Wendy's (Spicy Chicken Nuggets with Cheese & Bacon Baked Potato) almost every day for lunch. As a result I have not been able to button a single pair of jeans since in almost 2 weeks. While I was home I went out to dinner and had to unbutton my pants after I sat down and then sneakily button them again before I got up. Sad I know. So in order to rectify this problem I have decided to go on the "need to button at least one pair of jeans by the end of the week" diet. I have come up with a list of healthy meals (including lots of salad, fish and chicken) and just went grocery shopping this morning to buy the ingredients, as well as some healthy snacks. I also went to the farmer's market to buy a whole bunch of fruits and veggies. Finally, I picked out some exercise (mostly yoga and pilates) dvd's from Netflix. I am determined to fit into my pants darn it. I'm moving in 2 months and definitely don't have money to buy a new wardrobe. I'll keep you all posted on the recipe outcomes.