What I Ate Wednesday #4 – “Growing” Green

This week for WIAW Green Edition, I felt like going green by growing green! We did get a lot of rain Monday night through Tuesday morning, and now our grass is very green, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Right after chopping; Day 0

I’m talking about growing green onions, or scallions, if you will. I read about a handy way to re-grow a bundle of green onions from the store by saving the bottom white portion. Simply chop, all the green stems and use as you like, but then save the white part and put in a glass of water to let sit several days.

After just one day; there was only the white before!

In our home, we love to use green onions on salads (I have one almost every night) and Kelley dumps them in her specialty dish of Annie’s Homegrown Organic Whole Wheat Mac and Goat Cheese. I just love the smell of goat cheese and onions permeating our home…..no, seriously, my stomach rumbles (in a good way) every time.

Another day; they're growing like kids!  Ha, get it? We say kids are growing like weeds and I just flipped it around.  Me? Try to hard? Never!

Needless to say, as you see in the pics, these onions sprouted right back within a few days and are ready to use. You could even say we’re going green by growing and saving green. But you don't have to. I’m not sure if we can keep doing this since this is the first week to try, but I’ll try again and keep you updated!

Kelley took a few after this picture and approved of their taste.

I’ve been seeing a lot of kale chip posts lately, and since I promised Kelley I’d make some…….I made some. Man are these things addicting! All I did was sprinkle sea salt and pepper over the leaves and roasted until crisp; delish! Kelley gave the “constant eating until they were almost gone” approval and I was happy to provide. As the saying goes, “Happy wife, happy life.”





On to my Wednesday eats…..


Breakfast – leftover black beans with brown rice and green beans; microwave scrambled eggs and a generous helping of dill; after that I had the usual French press coffee with nutmeg.

 

Snack – hardly noteworthy; just a mug o’green and red tea with stevia

Lunch – green split pea and mixed veggie puree (I love immersion blending!); dehydrated Brussels; celery sticks; waaaayyy too many Arrowhead Mills Corn Puffs

After Lunch – just a brew of green tea mixed with a decaf chai tea bag with stevia; went for a short run and heavy punching bag session after work

Dinner – long time since lunch, very hungry; started with a big salad topped with mixed veggies, kale chips, and salsa for salad dressing; no purees this week (I mentioned I wouldn’t on Monday), but I did have a nice mix of baked NuNaturals goodies from this post and plain Chobani Greek yogurt; I finished the Peanut Butter Dip N’Dots I made too.

I loved the microwave eggs; they’re so easy and so good! Just beat eggs in microwave bowl and add spices as desired (like CAYENNE!) and microwave for 50 seconds, stir, then another 40 – 50 seconds and you’re good. If they still look runny, just wait since they will keep cooking a little.

Have you ever made microwave scrambled eggs?

WIAW #3 – Ode to Brussels Sprouts!

It’s week two of WIAW Green Theme Month and what better way to participate than with Brussels sprouts! I mentioned them several times before, and by now, any frequent reader knows how I love them. Forget a bowl of popcorn, I’d pick a bowl of these to sit down and watch a movie with. Apologies to anyone near me though…

This was supposed to be a cut back week for cooking, but I ended up cooking more than I planned. It’s not a surprise though; it’s just second nature to cook and feels weird not to start stove and oven first thing Saturday morning. I made a red quinoa dish as mentioned in Monday’s post and it got the empty dish of approval from our work friend. I’m glad he liked it since I’m not used to cooking for anyone else other than Kelley; plus, with the broccoli and avocado in there, he unknowingly celebrated WIAW: Green Food Month…..but on Monday.

Breakfast – Leftover red quinoa with veggies and dehydrated okra and Brussels sprouts; French Press coffee with a dab of organic skim milk and pure vanilla extract; I finished with a mix of Arrowhead Mills Corn Puffs, Kashi GoLean cereal, and dry roasted soy nuts 

Snack – Breakfast was pretty late and lunch was just around the corner, so I had a handful of soy nuts and black tea with NuNaturals stevia.

Tuesday's lunch before being pureed.

Lunch – Steamed Jersey sweet potato and broccoli with baked cod in a teriyaki sauce. Yesterday’s white bean and bell pepper puree had more green before being pureed, so I’ll count that too. I had a side snack of dehydrated Brussels sprouts and okra along with lunch, and double bagged green tea to drink.

Would you like some fish with that seasoning?

Liquid Snack – Green and red (rooibos) tea bags mixed and brewed

These are great on salad or by themselves.

Dinner and Beyond – Just like almost every night, a big salad topped with roasted mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts I made this past weekend. Then I moved on to part of my mini baked oatmeal cake with peanut butter Chobani Greek yogurt “icing”. Want to make this for yourself? Don’t worry; I’ll post the recipe soon! Patience is a …..aww who am I kidding, waiting sucks, but it won’t be long.

No guilt with this sugar-free baked oatmeal goodness!

Creamy Peanut Butter Squash Puree

My after dinner, dinner included the standard 2 cups of different purees I made ahead of time. One cup was filled with steamed carrots, yellow squash, frozen mixed berries, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, a splash of whiskey (like Eggnog…kinda), whey protein powder, NuNaturals liquid stevia and unsweetened almond milk. The next cup was acorn squash, peanut flour, cinnamon, NuNaturals vanilla liquid stevia, and unsweetened almond milk. Both were good, but the peanut flour was exquisite and tasted like eating a thinner version of peanut butter from the jar…mmmm.

As I mentioned in my meals above, I had dehydrated Brussels sprouts and okra as snacks that I made for my Green Foods. I love dehydrating foods and feel like I need another dehydrator to support this newfound healthy snack-maker. I’ve made okra before, but this was a first for the Brussels; next time I need to let them go longer or cut in half since these still had a little moisture in the center. Moisture or not, I loved the concentrated flavor and will make many more times. Plus, the dehydrated Brussels would be a lot easier to actually eat like popcorn….hmmm, just a thought.

Have you ever made your own dehydrated foods or want to try soon? What foods have you or would you dehydrate? 

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It's Future Friday! Time to make plans for next week...

Whew! A cold front just blew in here in Texas; a 20+ degree drop within minutes! And I was ready to call it an early Spring……oh well. The good news is that it should warm back up to upper 70’s by Monday; just in time for work…..yay.

What a week! It felt like it was longer than it was, and the weather was all over the place; it still is. We finally received our heavy bag and pull-up station, and I hope to have it up and ready on Saturday. I expect this will be a fun addition for Kelley and me to have for a great workout and supplement to strength training. Not to mention the stress relief it will provide!

I don’t plan on cooking that much this weekend. I want to spend more time with Kelley; the kitchen usually keeps me from doing that, and it will be a nice break. Since we don’t go out for food, I’ll just get a lot of frozen bean and veggie mixes to steam, season, and put in containers for work lunch. Oh yeah, our friend from work really liked the sample of quinoa pilaf I gave him, so I’ll make a big batch of that again so Kelley, our friend, and I can all have it one day next week.



Of course, a veggie filled frittata is pretty good and quick to make...hmmmmmm


Can you believe there are still a lot of people that don’t know of quinoa? I get so stuck in my “foodie world” that I don’t realize how behind the general population is on food. Maybe if more people shopped for their dinners as opposed to always relying on restaurants to serve them, we’d have a healthier and more informed world. I know it’s just a dream, but I’ll do my part and try to spread the good word on food to all who will listen. I enjoy sharing the quinoa with someone who never tried it before, hopefully it sticks and he will make some for his family.

Since I try to avoid packaged snack foods, I try to keep a stock of homemade healthy snacks I cooked or just in the form of cut up veggies. I need things that don’t need me to keep a close eye on, so I think I’ll make good use of the food dehydrator; I love making dehydrated okra, but maybe I’ll try beets and bananas again too.

These things were tiny after being dehydrated.  The beets made a great crunchy salad topping and the bananas were good mixed into yogurt with other cereal.

Baked overnight oats are another favorite and don’t require a lot of prep time, so I’ll make a batch or two of these.

I should be taking them out instead of taking a picture; these are perfectly brown and crispy!!

I'd like to cook a batch of scrumptious protein pancakes one morning though; Kelley really likes this and it's a great way to start the day.  Not because of food, but because I'l have a happy wife!

With crummy weather looming all weekend, it will be a great time for indoor projects. Besides cooking and setting up the punching bag station, Kelley and I are going to install hardware on all of our drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and work on other small projects as well.

Once the good weather comes back (and stays), we are going to build a nice herb garden that will house my pet box turtle, Hector. The poor guy has been hibernating in a large plastic box all winter while we lived in an apartment waiting for our house to be built. I know he’ll love it being on real land again, and we’ll have a great time putting everything together for him.

Hector's old home in the back yard of our old home.  The little basil plant took over this thing within weeks; it smelled wonderful!

There he is, Hector on the hunt for grub.  Or maybe he's just posing....

Do you ever have cut back weeks where you just do little or nothing at all to keep stress levels in check? What are some things you like to do when the weather is uninviting and you’re stuck inside?


Reminder: Check out my review of NuNaturals Stevia and enter to win some goodies from this great company. Contest ends next week on Friday, March 16, 2012.