Fruity Berry Salad

This is a copycat of my favorite salad at Zuppas - their Nuts About Berries salad. You will need:

Mixed greens
1 cup berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries)
Cinnamon almonds
Poppyseed dressing - there are lots of bottled varieties at the store to choose from
If it's not filling enough, I bet it would be good with some diced chicken.

To make the cinnamon almonds, put a handful of slivered almonds into a sautée pan. Add a tbsp of sugar, a shake if cinnamon and turn on the heat. Toss everything around until the sugar melts over the almonds. Don't let it caramelize too much and turn dark! Dump out on a plate to cool, break into smaller bits and you're done.

Week o' salads - part III

I can't remember having a bottle of salad dressing in the house when I was growing up. No matter what mix of vegetables we had in a salad, my mom would dress it the same way - a dash of salt and pepper, a drizzle of good olive oil and a few shakes of red wine vinegar. If we wanted to get really fancy we would add a bit of garlic powder or even a fancy vinegar (pomegranate red wine is excellent!) So it's weird to me when people live and die by their Ranch dressing - it's just not something I ever got into.

While similar to my Papa's garden salad from yesterday, this one has a little protein to make it filling. Substitute the tuna for chicken if you like. My favorite is the vacuum packed albacore tuna.


Fresh Salad with Tuna
Mixed greens
1 chopped red bell pepper
1 three-oz. package of water-packed tuna. If you accidentally get the oil-packed tuna (and I have), put it in a strainer and rinse it off for a while to get rid of most of the oil.
Drizzle of good-quality olive oil (about a tbsp)
Red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Papa's Garden Salad

This salad is a great side dish - a winner if it's served along with a fancy pasta dinner or at a casual BBQ. While you get get tomatoes from the store, nothing is better than garden-fresh. Grape tomatoes are my favorite.

I posted the recipe last summer.

Some salads to try

Since I've started running, I've also been watching what I eat pretty carefully. Thankfully it is summer and there is an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. And because it's hot outside, salads sound refreshing and yummy. I'm kind of afraid of winter and the surplus of thick soups, warm breads and holiday treats.

Sadly, restaurant and fast-food salads are tricky. Cheese, nuts, meats and dressings sneak in extra fat and calories that you don't need while you think you're being healthy. For example, a Cafe Rio pork salad packs in a whopping 800 calories! So I eat a lot of salad at home. Also I always have the dressing on the side where I can dip the lettuce into it, instead of pouring it over the entire salad. I find I only use about 2 tbsp of dressing with this technique.

So this week I'll share some of my favorite salads I've had this summer. They have been yummy and satisfying. Feel free to share your own!

Mango Chicken Salad

Mixed greens (romaine, spinach or any blend you like)
1/2 cooked, diced chicken breast
1 diced mango
1/2 cup berries (blueberries and raspberries are good)

Dressing:
1 large ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and roughly chopped (or 1 1/4 cups frozen mango cubes, thawed)
4 teaspoons nonfat plain yogurt
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Puree in blender until combined - store in fridge.

Homemade Yogurt

We've been eating a lot of yogurt lately. With all the strawberries and raspberries that we get from the garden every day and a little bit of that fabulous granola we made, it's the perfect low-fat, heart-healthy breakfast. If you want to give it a try, here is how I did it.

Homemade Yogurt
All you need is milk (whole, reduced fat, low-fat... whatever), powdered milk and a bit of plain yogurt to use as a starter. Make sure you get the kind with active, live cultures. You only need store-bought yogurt as a starter the first time, after that you use a bit of your leftover yogurt as a starter. You can make as much or as little as you want, with these proportions:

4 cups milk
1/3 cup powdered milk
1/4 cup yogurt starter

Basically you need to scald the milk (heat it so that bubbles start to form along the sides of the pan but not until it boils, about 160-170 degrees) so that it kills any bad bacteria. Cool the milk back to 110 degrees (you should be able to stick your finger into it but not leave it there long). Then you stir in 1/4 cup of your plain yogurt, cover the mixture with plastic wrap and keep it warm for 6 hours. Easy peasy right?

A more detailed step-by-step process can be found here. The site also discusses several different methods of keeping the yogurt warm for the required amount of time. I turned the oven on for a few minutes so that it was warm, boiled a pot of water, put the lid on and placed the whole thing inside the oven with the covered bowl of yogurt. I did this before bedtime and by morning it was perfect.

**I also read two interesting articles that you might like - one about yogurt for weight loss and another for runners.

Sweet potato fries

This is a random recipe that I came up with one day. It seemed like I had read the phrase "sweet potato fries" in a few places but could never find a recipe that sounded good or healthy. So one day I just tried a few things and this is what worked. They may not be tradition sweet potato fries but it's what we like.

Sweet Potato Fries...
2 large sweet potatoes
vegetable oil (olive oil doesn't get hot enough to fry things nice and crispy and you're just using a little bit, not deep frying them)
coarse salt

Microwave potatoes for 8-10 minutes (until they're done through but not starting to shrivel up inside their skins). I leave the skins on them for the fries because I like it. Remove it if you want. Cut into long slices, like this:

I like to use a griddle to fry them because you can turn things over easily. Brush the hot surface with a thin coat of oil and toss on the potato strips. Fry potato strips for a few minutes, turning them over when they start to brown, getting each surface. When done, remove from griddle and sprinkle with coarse salt (regular table salt will do just fine, I just think the coarse grains are pretty). Serve hot. Forget to take a picture of the finished fries.

"Fried" zucchini

I love fried zucchini sticks - the kind you get at gas stations and fairs. However, even though they're a vegetable, they're of the deep-fried variety and probably not as healthy as we might trick ourselves into believing. When I was doing Weight Watcher's last year I came up with this yummy recipe. All the tasty goodness of fried zucchini strips with almost none of the fat or calories. Plus it's a great way to use up those super-sized zucchini that appear in the garden some days.

"Fried" Zucchini Strips...
1 large zucchini
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
olive oil
coarse ground salt
black pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Wash your zucchini but don't peel it. Slice it in half. Use a large spoon to scoop out the seeds, like this:

Cut your zucchini into fry-sized slices. Brush or spray with olive oil**. Mix bread crumbs and Parmesan together. Press zucchini slices into the breading mixture (leave the peel side crumb-less, it won't stick well) and arrange on baking sheet.

Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes or until crumbs start to turn brown. If, after this time they're still not toasty-looking, turn the broiler on for a few minutes to brown them up. If you do turn on the broiler, keep the door open a crack so you can watch them every minute. You can go from Golden Brown to Charcoal in just a few seconds.

Remove from oven, sprinkle with coarse salt and fresh pepper. Serve immediately. Forget to take a picture of the finished product until your son, brothers-in-law and husband have demolished most of the tray.

**Update: Chrissy mentioned that she dipped her slices of squash in olive oil and the finished product was a little too oily for her. I usually spray mine with the non-stick olive oil spray, or brush it on with a pastry brush. Just a tiny bit makes the breading stick nicely.

Easy Peasy Wild Rice

This is my favorite way to prepare wild rice. The basic technique I learned from Alton Brown on the Food Network. I have never been able to get wild rice (or brown rice for that matter) to cook properly on the stovetop, so this way was much better.

Wild rice is a great alternative to plain white rice. Low in fat, high in fiber, protein and lysine, this is a great addition to your healthy diet. There are some great wild rice and rice blends in the supermarket. The one I used here was an organic rice medley that is available at Costco.

Easy Peasy Wild Rice...
1 1/2 cups rice
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1 tbsp butter (or butter substitute or olive oil)
1 tsp salt

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Add rice, hot water, butter and salt to a baking dish. Mix slightly and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake in oven for 1 hour.

When the rice is almost done, slice one medium onion and sauté in butter or olive oil just until edges appear translucent. Add onion, butter or oil, a sprinkle of garlic salt and a handful of frozen peas to the rice. Mix together gently and recover with foil for 5 minutes so peas can heat up. Serve immediately.

Running update

3 - number of miles run (no walking!)
36 - minutes it took
1.5 - miles it takes before I quit hating it and wanting to stop
475 - calories burned
5.5 - speed I run on the treadmill
1 - speed that Minnie walks on the treadmill while I stretch
9 - days before our 5K

Papa's garden salad

This was a simple garden salad that my Papa would make fresh as often as he could. He had an enormous garden by the riverside and we would just go pick the ingredients straight from the ground in the summer. I think he would have (and often did) eat this every single day the vegetables were in season. This salad is always a real winner because it's

1. super simple
2. comprised of relatively inexpensive ingredients
3. beautiful when dressed
4. not too weird for picky sorts
5. new to most people (not the same old same old)
6. packed with good-for-you veggies and very little fat
7. so so yummy!

Papa's Garden Salad...
1 cucumber
1 bell pepper
2 medium tomatoes (or a handful of grape tomatoes)
good-quality olive oil
red wine vinegar
seasoning (I use garlic salt, Italian seasoning and fresh black pepper)

Chop the vegetables into bite-size pieces, place all in a bowl. I always half-peel the cucumber that way because it is really pretty and the skin of veggies is so good for you. Sprinkle with seasonings (go easy at first and add more later if you want). Drizzle about 3 tbsp olive oil (I break out the good stuff for salads) and 4-5 tbsp vinegar. Toss salad. Check seasonings and adjust if necessary.

Pan-fry a simple chicken breast and you have a delicious summer meal in less than 15 minutes. Beat that Rachael Ray! Pick up these three simple ingredients and get ready to be a hit at your next BBQ, potluck or summer party.

Running update

2 miles in 24 minutes!

My goal

It's a well-documented fact* that 'graphic designer' is not the most "in shape" profession out there. With all the sitting and the computer-staring and the mouse-clicking, we're somewhere between "sloth" and "aardvark". Not so good for cardio-fitness, but we're mad thumb-wrestlers.

While I'd like to consider myself closer to the "aardvark" end of the fitness spectrum, the fact remains that I'm turning into a bit of a slouch. 2 pregnancies, 2 newborns and a busy job have eaten up most of the free time I spent doing active and sporty things. However with my kids having reached their 4th and 2nd birthdays, I'm running out of excuses, getting older and just plain chunking out.

Joe started running a few years ago and on Saturday, completed his first 5K. With a respectable time of 29 minutes, he finished strong and didn't get passed by anyone in a stroller (which was his personal goal). And so he started pestering me to run one with him. Joe and I are fiercely competitive with each other - in a good way. If we had classes together in school, we would constantly try to one-up each other until we both had straight A's. So I know with him egging me on, I'll probably work hard until I can do this. Also I've watched all the weight, counted all the points and tried all the other ways I can think to drop a few more pounds. I think my body has given up all it's willing to at this activity level and it's time to start working harder.

I checked out this book from the library and read this website for info on training for a 5K. Both are really good. Both recommend setting specific, short-term and attainable goals, naming a reward for yourself and then working out at a moderate level instead of trying to run until you hate it and hurt all the time. So after a week of testing myself on the treadmill, I can do the 5K distance in 39 minutes. Not spectacular and I would come in ahead of only kids on trikes and basset hounds. However, I would finish and not die.


Current time: 39 minutes
Goal time: 33 minutes
Race date: July 24th
Reward: A cute running outfit

I'll post progress toward my goal as time goes on. I'm really excited about this! And if absolutely nothing else, I've got to lose a bit of weight, right?

*I'm sure things like this are documented. It sounds like something that would make a good study. Google "graphic design sloths" and see what you come up with.