Thai Food Made Easy

Well hello veggies!

My roommates ordered out for Thai food tonight, but I opted for a homemade version since I just happened to buy a bottle of curry sauce at the store yesterday.  I am really making an effort to cook more, because for the past few months I have been majorly slacking in this department.  Let’s just say a busy schedule got the best of me and I was eating scrambled eggs and toast for dinner numerous nights of the week.  Who am I???

Last night I stocked up on some more interesting items so I have no excuse not to make some fun meals this week.  I get too excited about having good food in the house sometimes…

Here’s the sauce I used for tonight’s meal:

Not the best curry ever, but tasty nonetheless. It’s amazing what a good sauce can do for a dish.  I need to learn how to make sauces like this from scratch!

Step 1–Saute veggies of choice in some olive oil

Step 2–Add sauce and simmer while you cook a starch (I used couscous)

Step 3–Serve veggie mixture on top of starch and dig in!

Easy enough, right?

Tomorrow will be my “food prep day” for the week.  I try to help myself out as much as possible when I have the time so there are no excuses for an unhealthy meal.  My weeks get busy, but I love what I do!

Good night!

 

 

 

Straight outta Nebraska!

Hello, hello! Blogging from a wonderful hotel in Nebraska right now.  It’s so warm here!

Obviously we don’t waste any time… At the lovely hour of 4:00 am, my step-dad and I were off on our road trip with our to-go coffee mugs and luggage.  I was thinking that I would sleep for awhile, but after we got going I was just too excited and we chatted away for the next couple of hours until we stopped for breakfast at a Perkins.

From here, we slowly moved southwest across the country and I was loving the new scenery because I can’t remember the last time I traveled by car out west.  It was pretty flat, but with lot’s of farms, windmills, cows, and green grass!

We stopped at Panera in Iowa for a late lunch because I needed to take care of something on my computer and I knew they had wireless… plus I just love the place so I reasoned that it was absolutely necessary that we eat there!

John called it a “chick place” when he was talking to my mom later on haha… Not really his style, but I ordered for him and I think he liked it!

This is the You Pick 2 meal… 1/2 of a Mediterranean Veggie + Forest Mushroom soup which I really liked!  I think it was new?

I also had one of their fantastic lemonades… a totally worth it splurge considering the fact that I was over-dressed and sweating in the car. This just sounded SO good and it didn’t let me down:-)

After lunch we decided to hammer out about 4 more hours before stopping for the night so tomorrow would be shorter.  I snacked on some of this homemade snack mix to tide me over.  Well, mostly boredom, but some hunger I guess.

Neither one of us was super hungry for dinner, so we just went somewhere close and ordered light.  It was a BBQ place of some sort so I built a meal out of sides… This is a baked sweet potato, BBQ baked beans, and fire-grilled veggies.

The veggies and sweet potato were demolished pretty quickly, but the beans were just so-so… Not enough beans and too much overly sweetened sauce.  It ended up being enough food anyway.  The place had great atmosphere too, so that’s a plus!

I’m excited to get there tomorrow because I want to see what this place is all about!  The car ride has gone by surprisingly fast, maybe because I have some new reading material…

This book is FABULOUS! A graduation gift from my brother and his girlfriend (ahh they know me so well!), it has great explanations of cooking techniques, incredible pictures, and recipes that don’t have 100 ingredients.  I definitely read this from cover to cover today and was drooling the entire time!

Time for me to hit the sack, tomorrow should be another long day and it’s Cinco de Mayo!  I’m thinking a Margarita is definitely in my future… Goodnight!

Mushroom Zucchini “Risotto”

Tonight’s dinner was surprisingly quick and delicious!  I basically threw a bunch of stuff into a pot and let it simmer until thick and creamy.  Here’s what went in:

• Garlic and onion (sauteed in olive oil)
• 1/3 cup brown rice
• 1/2 zucchini, diced
• handful of mushrooms, sliced
• lemon zest (I saw Rachael Ray use it today so I was inspired!)
• thyme, salt, pepper
• fresh grated parm
• 1 packet of salmon stirred in at the end

I used “risotto technique” by toasting up the rice before adding liquid and then stirring, adding liquid, stirring… repeat!  It probably took a good 30 minutes and the rice still had a bite to it which I kind of liked.  I usually use arborio rice but I didn’t have any on hand so this was the next best thing.

I topped it off with with more lemon zest, parm, and a sprinkle of almonds for crunch.  The flavor was really fresh and summery!  I was totally full after I ate it too so it turned out to be a nice little improv dinner.

Tomorrow I’m going to get back on schedule with posting all of my eats.  School is pretty rough right now but this is the last week of class and next week is finals (which shouldn’t be too bad). AHHH! I can’t believe how close I am to graduating.

G’nite!

Buitoni Ravioli

I’m Back!  After a weekend of fun and treats, I was so ready to eat a simple and healthy dinner last night.  My friend Jessica was still in town for the night, so I decided to pull out the Buitoni Ravioli that FoodBuzz hooked me up with.

The website describes the Wild Mushroom Agnolotti:

“A blend of earthy mushrooms, including sweet, rustic portobellos and delicate criminis, creates an impeccable pairing with fresh-roasted garlic and imported grana padano and parmesan cheeses, wrapped inside thin layers of stone-ground semolina pasta.”

It was GREAT!  The last time I reviewed a brand of frozen ravioli on the blog, I remember saying that the filling was almost “non-existent”.  This stuff, however, was loaded with a wonderful filling of wild mushrooms and different cheeses.  The entire time we were eating, we kept talking about good it was!

The new “Reserva” line that Buitoni has developed also includes: Chicken and Four Cheese Ravioli, Quattro Formaggi Agnolotti, and a Spicy Beef and Sausage Ravioli.  I would love to try them all because I’m really impressed with this product.

There’s nothing funky on the ingredients list… the flavor is rich and wholesome just the way I like it.  Even though the package says 2 servings, I think it could have easily been 3 servings because we had a nice salad on the side and it was really satisfying!  I happily ate everything on my plate though.

We put extra mushrooms in the sauce and had fresh grated Parmesan on top.  Delicious!

Definitely give this product a try… You won’t be sorry!  I can’t wait to test out the other flavors of pasta.

Grilled Veggie Wrap

Hey guys!

I may have just made the BEST wrap I’ve ever created in my own kitchen… Seriously, I was in veggie heaven!  After seeing grilled zucchini on Ashley‘s blog a couple of days ago, I knew I wanted to try it because it reminded me of summer!
Here’s what I did:

Grilled zucchini strips on the George Foreman, sauteed mushrooms in a skillet with a dab of butter, and halved some grape tomatoes.

Spread some aioli on a warmed Ezekial tortilla (this stuff is great on everything).

Wrapped everything up and then put it back on the Foreman.

That’s it! I also had a side salad with some of the veggies that wouldn’t fit inside topped with Annie’s balsamic vinaigrette.

Can I just say that if I had to pick a “product of the year”, I would definitely choose these Ezekial tortillas!  I use them for wraps, burritos and quesadillas and they are SO delicious.  I love the nutritional stats, the texture, “nuttiness” and the fact that they are medium sized and super filling.

After figuring out NOT to microwave these things (makes them fall apart), I’ve been 100% satisfied.  Two thumbs up!

Breakfast and lunch were exactly the same as yesterday… Banana/date oats, chicken/aioli sandwich with grapes and veggies.  I also had a few of Tina‘s cookies for a little afternoon snack.  Love these things!

Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

Spring-a-Ling-a-Ding

Happy Friday night everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic day! SO happy it’s the weekend!

Breakfast was the last of my Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes with AB & J.  They held me over SO much better today! I’m not sure if it’s because I worked out later on in the morning (seems to suppress my appetite), or because I used extra almond butter but it did the trick.

I pulled out a Blueberry Oikos too, but I was full by the time I finished this so I ate it mid-morning instead…

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn’t care for this yogurt nearly as much as the vanilla flavor.  It was overly sweetened for my taste and the thickness just wasn’t there.  Also, I’m not sure if it was just me, but there seemed to be less in the container?  Sorry, SF but I have to be honest and I wouldn’t buy this flavor again.

I’m excited to try the plain flavor because I seem to like plain yogurt better than sweetened varieties.  I think I’ll be using it in my lunch tomorrow…

So between classes, I ate a packed sandwich while working on a presentation.  I didn’t get a picture because there was people all over and I was shy:-). I can tell you that it was a combo that you’ve seen on here before…hummus (tons!), spinach, red bell pepper, and jalapenos on whole wheat.  I just love it!

I practiced doing a sub-maximal exercise test with a few people from my Health/Exercise Leadership Skills class too.  We have to perform this on a partner for our final exam and I’m actually really nervous!!

The test involves progressively increasing intensity on a cycle ergometer and taking blood pressure and heart rate at set intervals.  Then we plug the numbers into equations and do all kinds of fun stuff…

Anyways, when I was finally done for the day, I snacked on a bowl of Great Grains (all gone now…) and a handful of carrots before Nichole and I picked up some basics from the grocery store.

Then, my room mates cooked an awesome dinner!  I present to you, Turkey Portabello Wraps:

Saute cubed turkey and mushrooms in a skillet like this:

Then roll up in a wrap with mayo, diced tomatoes, spinach, and mozzarella cheese!  We used these wraps tonight:

Inspired by a restaurant back home that we all used to go to…these are so delicious!  I’m still hungry but I haven’t decided what else I want yet LOL… Maybe ice cream?  I’ve been thinking about some good quality ice cream lately… Since it’s the first day of Spring, why not?

Enjoy your night!