Healthy Eating

I mentioned a few posts ago that I tried a recipe from The Sneaky Chef. Now that I’m home I really want to make healthy cooking a priority and will try just about anything, even if I have to sneak it in. Chris doesn’t know this yet, but tomorrow I’m going through the pantry and getting rid of all the processed crap. Which means I need to fill it up again with healthy choices or Chris is going to revolt. Let him. He’s blogged before about his health issues and although he’s been doing really well on his high blood pressure meds (and I think his cholesterol is down) it would be ideal to not need them at all. He still eats out WAY too much (I see the Chick-Fil-A receipts) for lunch. I need to do a better job of packing for him. Oddly enough I don’t have any immediate health concerns- no high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol problems, but I think healthier eating will definitely help my depression/anxiety.

I’ve been trying to determine the changes we need to make. We already eat fish twice a week. I couldn’t live without my Costco salmon. We also eat a lot of chicken, whole grain breads, fruit. But we need to add more whole grains and a variety of vegetables (we are stuck in a green beans or corn rut). Portion size is another issue we need to deal with. And Chris has a sweet tooth, so I’ll need to come up with some healthy alternatives.

Anyway, I had Chris pick up a few new cookbooks at the library: Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass & King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. A lot of really interesting recipes. I’m a little intimidated by the Lorna Sass cookbook, might be hard to find some ingredients, like amaranth, and because I completely suck at cooking rice. If it doesn’t boil in a bag I can’t cook it. Which really makes no sense to me. I can pretty much cook anything I set my mind to, rice shouldn’t be that complicated. I even screw up rice in a rice cooker. Although I did make brown basmati rice with our salmon & tilapia for dinner yesterday and it actually turned out. Of course Chris didn’t like it, said he couldn’t get past the weird popcorn flavor, which is what I liked about it. Oh well. That’s something I’m just going to have to get past. Chris has gotten so much better over the past 5 years, but he’s still ridiculously picky.

I think I’ll try the Whole Wheat, Oat and Cranberry Scones recipe, Steel Cut Oatmeal with Fruit Compote and maybe the Grits recipe (Shrimp & Grits!!) from the Sass cookbook this week. I’ve never actually made grits, but I’ve seen Paula Deen do it. I won’t be doing the 3 sticks of butter (or whatever insane amount she uses) and block of cheese in my grits. This is getting off topic- but did you see Pioneer Woman’s Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes recipe? Two sticks of butter and an 8 oz block of cream cheese for 5 lbs of baking potatoes. Holy mackerel. I can say they are just as good with 1/2 stick of butter and some freshly grated Parmesan (I made them for Valentine’s Day with a peppercorn rubbed filet.  Yummo).

Anyone have any ideas/tips? Send them my way.

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