Healthy Eats

Yes, I remember that the original purpose of this food blog was to chronicle healthy eating which somehow turned into how much bacon and fried chicken I was eating.

Well as I've announced before, I'm trying to start a new diet that is full of protein with less meat. My coworker and I somehow got on this health-kick with discovering kale and quinoa. My coworker T (who is vegetarian/pescatarian) has been bringing in a different Quinoa salad every week. First week had chickpeas and lemon juice. Second week was red quinoa with green beans, dried cranberries and walnuts. This week was red quinoa with apples and curry powder. Delish. I need to stock up pronto.

This was one of my lunches last week:

Can you guess what each thing is?

I also made a big batch of lentil soup (and sneaked in pancetta) which will be very welcoming to eat once it gets colder.

My goal by Sept 27 is to be able to run the 5K I booked in Disney World. Right now, I can probably do 2 easy. Hopefully eating healthier and losing some extra pounds will get me through the 3 miles. I believe I can do it, as last year when I tried to start running, I barely made half a mile without getting out of breath. Now, I wake up at 7 (sometimes) and run 1.2 miles. Wish me luck! Share any recipes in the comments as well.

Kale

Last week I went vegan… for lunch. I was skeptical at first since I do love steak, chicken, pork, duck, fish, etc… but I saw this restaurant nearby called Soy & Sake has a great lunch special. $6 gets you a choice of a cup of the soup of the day, salad, collard green roll or soy chicken teriyaki skewers and an entrée (either Chicken Pad Thai, Black Bean Ginger Stir Fry or Chicken Sandwich. There are other choices for a dollar or two extra). I went with Chicken Pad Thai. I’ve had mock chicken (or unchicken in some circles) and I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by it. This was no exception. I got the collard green roll which was actually really tasty (probably because it was a deep fried spring roll), and the chicken pad thai portion was huge. I could only eat half of it.

This got me (and my coworker) thinking… we should try to eat healthier as we are both trying to lose weight. I told her about Souen, a restaurant with only macrobiotic dishes. I went there once with L___ and this guy; and it was an interesting experience to say the least but that was more due to the company. The food was good, bland but good. I had a broiled salmon filet with burdock, hijiki, brown rice, squash, and who knows what else (the guy ordered). Anyway, I was really hankering for the chicken pad thai from the other place so my coworker got Souen and said it was really good.
She then looked up diets that included raw foods, macrobiotic, etc. and mentioned Kale. I always figured Kale was a seaweed and maybe had it once or twice but I wondered if Fairway had it. In actuality, it’s closer to the cabbage family and according to Wikipedia:
“Kale is considered to be a highly nutritious vegetable with powerful antioxidant properties; kale is considered to be anti-inflammatory.
Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium“
Sure enough, I went last night and a bunch was only $1.99. It was so big it could hardly fit in the plastic veggie bag. With my head sticking up, feeling pretty proud I had a head of lettuce and a huge thing of kale in my basket, I walked around, got milk, yogurt, iced tea, and some chicken apple sausage from the very nice butcher .

When I got home, I looked up kale recipes thinking I would probably just steam it and eat it with rice and some sausage but I saw a link that made them out to be like potato chips. Hmmm. Seemed simple enough. I tried it and 10 minutes later I was eating Kale and kind of loving it. Here’s the recipe:

Preheat oven to 350F Cut leaves off of center stem. Wash & dry. Tear up into bite sized pieces. Spread leaves over a baking sheet (I lined mine with parchment paper). Drizzle a bit of olive oil over them. Season with kosher salt. Bake in oven for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges are crisp. I sprinkled a bit more table salt while it was still hot. Let cool and enjoy.

SO EASY. I had a batch for breakfast this morning. I lightly fried up tofu for lunch. I also ran a 1.23 miles this morning at 7am. What have I become??