Mediterranean Grilled Chicken Salad

Tonight's blog is just showing that you can make quick meals that are healthy and can also fit your need whether you are trying to lose weight, maintain your weight, or even gain weight.  As, I was finishing up my workout today I figured I would see what some people would suggest that I cook for dinner in a last minute situation.  One of my friends suggested a Grilled Chicken Mediterranean Salad.  I had to pick my brain and remember what I had at the house and what I might need to pick up at the store.  A quick trip to the local Trader Joe's and I was set for my meal.  I used a mixture of some leftovers that I had at home and a few things that I normally don't carry that I picked up.  Here is the line up of what went into my salad:

So in the salad tonight I decided I would have a spring mix in place of the regular romaine lettuce.  Also, in the salad I had tomatoes, red onion, kalmatta olives, feta cheese, whole wheat pearl couscous, grilled chicken, and I used a Greek dressing from the store as well. 

Here at this starting stage is what makes salads such a versatile meal.  You can combine and mix ingredients in your salad to provide you what you are wanting as far as calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein.  For me tonight I did a workout so needed a nice mixture of protein and carbohydrates to replenish what I used during my workout.  Therefore, I added in some couscous and grilled chicken.  If you are looking to keep calories low though you just look at omitting the carbohydrates and look to keep your portion size of protein to a small one.  Again, salads can be what you want and need them to be.

Once everything was chopped up you just start putting it together.  Here is everything that I added chopped up, so you can see the onions, tomatoes, olives, and chicken ready to be added to the spring mix.

Now, is the time that you get to dress everything up if you want to or you can throw everything into a bowl add you dressing and enjoy.  The dressing is another place that you can look to cut calories if you are watching your daily intake, or you can just keep your portion size in mind as you pour your dressing over the top of you creation.  Here is my final project from tonight:

Hope you enjoy this blog and feel free to experiment with what you add to salads and the flavors that you can take away from them.  For me there is no right or wrong in making a salad.  The most important thing is that you enjoy the flavors that you put into it and enjoy every bite.  That is what food is supposed to do; provide us with the vitamins and minerals we need, but also to provide us with enjoyment.  Bon appetit!!!!

Who says you can't have pizza for breakfast...

Well I had an awesome weekend in Raleigh where I went to go visit my nephew.  Below is a picture of us together.

While I was there I decided that I would introduce my brother and sister-in-law to my blog "Single Guy's Guide to Cooking."  This breakfast idea came from Theresa Ward who said that pizza is one of her favorite meals for breakfast.  Now, cold pizza can make an awesome breakfast, but there is no cooking that goes along with that.  I have had similar meals to what Theresa suggested and had an idea of how this meal would be prepared.  So here are the ingredients that I had for this meal.

What I used was a good whole grain bread, eggs, an onion, fired roasted tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil.

Now you can get really fancy with this if you want and add other vegetables such as spinach, sun dried tomatoes, different peppers, the sky is the limit depending on what your taste buds like.  Remember that adding more vegetables add more vitamins and minerals which make the meals that much healthier.

To start the meal I sauteed the onions in a little bit of canola oil and added in the garlic towards the end so that it would not burn.  Next, I added the fire roasted tomatoes and cooked it a while to cook off some of the moisture.  I then added in the crushed tomatoes and simmered for 5-10 minutes to let the flavors marry and thicken up the sauce.

While the sauce was simmering I poached the eggs which I have talked about in my last blog and toasted the bread in the oven.  I could have served everything on the plate seperately, but I like to make the presentation a little more fancy.  So, I cut out the center of the toast and placed the poached eggs in the center.  Italian eggs is what Theresa called them, but I have had this at other places and they called it Frog in a ditch.

The basil I cut up into a chiffonade which turns the basil into long thin strips.  I like to remind you that food taste better as you add fancy names to them, and learning new techniques and knowing what to call them will help you sound more knowledgable about cooking.  My brother and sister-in-law really enjoyed this breakfast and as I ate it the meal really did taste like pizza.  I kept the sauce very basic with just garlic, onions, tomatoes, and basil.  Feel free to add more flavors to the meal with different herbs, spices, and vegetables.

As always let me know what you think and if you try cooking the meal let me know how it turns out.  I love hearing feedback.  Hope you enjoy!!

I will not eat them Sam I am.....

I will not eat Green Eggs and Ham, I will not eat them Sam I am.....so I tried to take the classic and put my own little twist on them.  So for my breakfast I normally try to include some lean protein, good complex carbohydrates (CHO), and will sometimes throw in some dairy with it as well.  The CHO will give you will give you the energy you need to get you through the day, and the protein is there help keep you full through the first part of the day.

Now I have never really been able to do a good sunny side up egg like you find in the book, so I decided to do a poached egg in its place.  Also, since I cook for one more of the time that big piece of ham that you see in the book was replaced by some pieces of Canadian bacon.

To cook poached eggs you can either buy a fancy poached egg cooker, so you can go with the cheap man's  way and use a sauce pan or skillet that you fill up with water.  You will then bring the water up to a simmer, but you do not want it to boil. 

Now a trick that you can use to help with keeping the egg whites to stay together is to add a little bit of vinegar to the water before you add the egg.  The water in here also looks a little weird because in order to get by "green" eggs I dyed the water green to provide the egg whites with some color.  Now, the important thing to do is to not over cook the egg.  Most recipes that I read recommend around 4 minutes and then remove from the water.

I then toasted up my english muffins (whole wheat of course)  and served it with my green eggs and ham.  Remember that presentation is key to making food taste that much better.  Here was the final product.

This pic is to show some of the detail.....

Tip: When choosing whole grain products don't be fooled with what is on the labels of the packaging.  The best way to always tell is look for that first ingredient on the ingredient list.  You want this ingredient to have the word "whole"  with it.  This lets you know that it is a majority whole grain product, because ingredients are listed by weight (heaviest first, lightest last).

Hope you enjoy!!!!

Pizza w/ leftovers

So I have been out of town most of this week and needed to use up some leftovers in the fridge.  Using up odds and ends of food is always a challenge and I hate throwing food out, so I decided to make a meal with what was in there.  Here is what I pulled out to do dinner tonight:

I probably could have done some other meals with these ingredients, but I wanted to show that you can make pizza a healthy meal.  I generally make my own crust for my pizza, but you can buy whole wheat crust already made or you can look to use whole wheat tortillas as well.  Either of these whole grain options offer you more fiber and other vitamins and minerals then crust made from enriched flour.  Here is the recipe for my crust:

• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• 1/4 cup of water

Mix these ingredients together, knead for 1 to 2 minutes and then roll it out and bake for 5-10 minutes.

Once I pulled it out of the oven I chopped up the pork tenderloin, and used barbeque sauce instead of the basic tomato sauce.

I then loaded the rest of the toppings making sure to get my vegetables in by adding peppers, onions, and tomatoes to the mix.  You can add just about any vegetables that you like as a topping, which is one of the things that I like about pizza.  I then topped it off with a part-skim mozzarella cheese and popped it in the oven.



I baked the pizza a 400 degrees F for about 10 minutes and the put it under the broiler forr about 5 minutes to brown up the cheese.  Here is what the final product looked like:

Sometimes cooking just takes a little bit of an imagination and not having the fear of messing up.  Not all meals are going to turn out the way that you want them, but as you cook more an learn more techniques the more varities of foods that you can cook.  To keep my pizza healthier then others I used a thin whole wheat crust which keeps the carbohyrdrates within 60g and I spared using alot of cheese which can add fat to your meal.  The other thing was using a lean meat in the pizza as well.  Hope you enjoyed the blog and feel free to ask me any questions about the process.

Crepes with Fresh Berries

So at the request of Ms. Lauren O'Brien I am trying a new breakfast this morning.  You always here about the french and their Crepes so I decided to try my hand at doing this myself.  Since I have never made these before I was not sure about a recipie but I didn't have to look too far to find a recipe when a friend provided me one from " 100 Days of Real Food ".   So I gathered my ingredients which was not alot and are pictured below.

The recipe walks you through how to do the whole process and I actually used a non-stick pan so didn't have to use the additional butter, which will cut down on the fat content but alot of that depends on how much you would have added to the pan with each crepe. 

I tried to get a little fancy and make a syrup with some of the berries, but if I was to go back and do this meal again I would probably not do this and just serve the meal with the fresh berries.  However, to make the syrup all I did was added some berries with a little water and simmered it for a few minutes to pull out some of the juices from the berries.

Once you start into making the crepes the process actually goes pretty quickly and the more you do the better you will be at the process.  Before I knew it I was making the crepes without any problems at all and they were coming out a nice golden brown.

The nice thing with doing these at home is that you can get creative with them if you would like.  I was not this time, but going forward you can look at creating different fillings for them such as a hazelnut spread, peanut butter, preserves, or you can go savory with ricotta cheese.  Again, I think your imagination will be what holds you back on this one.  In the end though it is the presentation of your food that gives it that Wow!!  factor.  So, experiment with what you think is going to be the best.  The most important thing to cooking for me and should be for you is to have fun and don't be afraid to try new things!!! 

From the Farmer's Market

So after a trip to the Decatur Farmers Market I had to create a dinner menu that incorporated some awesome finds.  On the menu was Pork Tenderloin, roasted okra, and a side salad with fresh tomatoes and red onion.  Here is what I was working with:

So the pork tenderloin I marinated in a little oil and a dry rub that I made with whatever I had in  the cabinet, but it had brown sugar, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and fresh cracked pepper.

I have always loved roasted vegetables and have done okra a couple of times, so when I saw it at the market I thought that it would be awesome to roast it for dinner.  I did a rough chop on the okra an roasted it with olive oil, salt, and fresh cracked pepper as well.

Everything was finally brought together once I had sliced the tomtatoes and onion and incorporated it into a salad.  The whole meal only took me about 45 minutes to do and everything was done once the meat was done cooking in the oven.  I am a big believer that presentation is key to food tasting better since we eat with our eyes first.  So here was the final product:

I have leftover pork tenderloin which I will incorporate into a meal later on this week and also stay tuned for breakfast tomorrow morning.  I am also including a picture of lunch today which incorporated my left over chicken and vegetables from the night before.  I try to keep meals simple, healthy, and try not to incorporate too many over the top techniques.  I look forward to the comments and feed back so please leave comments on what you think.  Thanks for reading and I hope you come back again.

Again, a special thanks to Ivabell Acres for allowing me to purchase the okra, tomatoes, and red onion for my dishes today.

Call for breakfast and other meal ideas

So I have made a call for breakfast  ideas to help show that cooking can be easy and healthy all at the same time.  As a dietitian I am always thinking of different ways to make foods healthy, appealing, and delicious at the same time.  So stay tuned for pictures and blogs that showcase the meals that friends request.  Tomorrow's post will be showcasing Crepes with fresh fruit which was requested by a Ms. O'Brien who runs a non-profit here in the Atlanta area called Embraced Atlanta.  Feel free to leave comments or suggestions.  This is a picture from this morning's breakfast just to give you a little bit of a preview of what is to come.