Shrimp | Healthy and Sane

The beauty of doing nothing, perfected

February 22nd, 2011

I took last week off from work to catch up on my mile long to do list, slow down and relax. I kind of joked on twitter about feeling guilty about not getting enough done, while on vacation, but the truth is it wasn’t really a joke. I kept thinking of more and more things I should have had time to do and then felt disappointed at the end of each day about my lack of progress (basically, nothing new at all – I just didn’t have 8 hours of work under my belt). Luckily we had plans to finish the week with a mini-vacation to Maine! Apparently I’m only able to calm down through forced relaxation!

The very first night we watched Eat, Pray, Love on demand (which btw, I was not a fan of… probably because I read the book and movies never live up to books) and the Italian bel far niente (aka “the beauty of doing nothing”) really stuck with me. Why should I feel guilty for taking days off to accomplish a whole lot of nothing and just relax? We all need to recharge our batteries. The rest of the weekend was definitely dedicated to bel far niente. You better believe that cooking and eating was no trouble at all! Winking smile [My mother in law, Jane, and I shared the responsibility.]

There was seafood…

Shrimp with penne in a creamy herb sauce (+ garlic bread)

I made lobster mac & cheese

[The men cooked and shelled the lobster, I did the rest. It was cheesy and creamy – the perfect Maine treat!]

And couldn’t pass up the seafood lover’s omelet (crab + lobster) at the Boathouse in Rockland.

SO good!

I <3 lobster!

And then there were blueberries… we dug deep into Jane’s recipe archives and found some gems from 1994!!! I was 12 at the time. Good thing I’m older because I could make these babies. Oh my! Embarrassed smile <—that’s me blushing, yes that good!

Lemon blueberry muffins. Heaven!

The very last morning, Jane treated us all to freshly made yogurt blueberry pancakes. They were moist and full of giant blueberries bursting with flavor.

[Email me if you want the recipes for either of these, I took pictures of the printouts!]

These were my favorite food things but the best part was definitely doing only things I felt like doing. I spent some “quality” time with magazines (scissors in hand – what can I say, I found it relaxing!) and watched more House Hunters than I’d care to admit… but that ended up being for the greater good too! The second we got home to Boston, I hooked up my laptop to the internet (together at last! ) and started researching bathroom vanities, tiles, window curtains, table runners, area rugs and more. Apparently the beauty of doing nothing has its advantages. My creative juices were flowing and I was dying to put them to use. Better yet? I was happy to come back to work today. They were happy to have me back too! Who me?

Are you able to take time off and just enjoy it or do you need to be forced into relaxation (like being “locked” in a cabin with no internet access and cell reception)? I think the Italians got this right. I’m going to try to bring some of that bel far niente spirit more into my life. It really is fun!

Last chance to enter the UNO’s giveaway!

The real food diet cookbook–review and giveaway

December 7th, 2010

About a month ago (during my little break), I was contacted about reviewing a new healthy cookbook. I LOVE cookbooks and am slowly growing quite the collection, but I find that there aren’t too many great healthy cookbooks out there and I’m always looking for new inspiration. What arrived at my office a few days later had an intriguing name… The Real Food Diet cookbook. Diet? All right, let’s see what this is all about. I’m definitely all for real food at least.

The book starts with an outline of Dr. Axe’s diet, defining “real food” and “fake food.” I didn’t really care for the tone of it – it seemed a little gimmicky with claims like “refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans!” (yeah, ok!) which in my opinion actually undermined some of the good messages like avoiding hydrogenated oils and artificial sweeteners and focusing on hormone/antibiotic free, organic meats and eggs vs. their conventional counterparts. Some of the suggestions also lacked sufficient rationale. For example, the diet allows for small portions of grains but they must be unprocessed and glutten-free. I didn’t understand why glutten-free (for people that do not have glutten allergies) was recommended and further why some recipes in the cookbook portion called for glutten-free pancake mix. Is that unprocessed? Again, why is it better than whole wheat flour?

The book and I generally didn’t get off on the right foot but I was mostly interested in the cookbook portion and that’s what I set out to review. Majority of the recipes included nice looking photos, which I always appreciate (although a few of them did not match the description entirely… a bit sloppy). I also liked the little shortcut signs for meals that are quick, pre/post workout, low on energy, kid-friendly, etc.

Most of the recipes appeared pretty simple and straight forward and many of them sounded (and looked) delicious. Perhaps because of the intro section, for the most part I felt like this was a diet book (first) with supplemental recipes (second), rather than a cookbook with certain nutritional guidelines. The one clear miss in the cookbook section was the fact that there were no serving sizes noted. In some cases it’s obvious, but for things like shakes, for example – I had no idea whether I was going to get a whole pitcher or just one glass.

Recipe review time!

Chicken Bryan

This called for 4 tablespoons of oil and 1/2 cup of butter for 2lbs of chicken. I’m all for not being scared of healthy fats but that confused me and I just couldn’t do it. The end result with significantly less fat, was still pretty delicious. I found the bitterness of the lemon rind a bit too strong on day 1, but it actually mellowed out in a few days in the fridge so the leftovers tasted better. Smile

Egg Tahini Salad

A bit of a misnomer because it was actually a salad with eggs… not an egg salad. Am I too anal? Again it was a bit annoying that serving sizes were not included but I made a portion and while I had to thin the dressing out with some water, it was quite flavorful and I enjoyed it (the addition of tomatoes was my own and I thought it was brilliant! )

Next up I made the kale shake which I thought was vile. There is no picture here because after 2 sips (I forced a second one just to make sure I wasn’t crazy), the whole thing went down the drain. I usually force myself to eat whatever I make because I hate wasting food but this one was no go. The ingredients list included kale, cayenne peppers and bananas – this was either going to be genius or well, a disaster. You know what I thought of it by now Winking smile

I’m happy to say it was smooth sailing from here. The rest of the recipes I tried were super flavorful, easy and very satisfying.

I made the raw marinara sauce with ground grass-fed beef (which I pan fried before mixing with the rest of the sauce) and served it over whole wheat gnocchi. The base of the sauce is sun-dried tomatoes which packed so much flavor. Loved this!!

The rest of the ground beef went into the making of the bison burgers. I know beef isn’t bison but I thought the spices that went into the patties were delicious – I’m sure they’d work great with bison! (Note: the roasted butternut squash and cream cheese additions were my own).

Next up, I made the blueberry bliss snack bars. I don’t know how many the recipes was supposed to make – I shaped them into 2 and had a fun little photo shoot. Party smile

These were sweet yet wholesome. I chopped my almonds coarsely and enjoyed their crunch. I also think that making bars into rounds makes them feel like cookies and extra special. I sure felt special eating these Smile

The last recipe I tried was of the avocado mango salsa. It wasn’t much different from other avocado mango salsas I’ve tried but I was happy to have this sweet/sour combo again. It paired beautifully with grilled shrimp with I served over red quinoa.

At the end of it all, I think Dr. Axe got some of my trust back. We had a rocky start (and that kale shake is seriously disgusting!) but all these eats were clean, fresh and delivered strong flavors. I bookmarked a lot of the recipes for a potential review and definitely still plan on trying them out!

Would you like to try the recipes yourself? I have one free copy to giveaway!

Here are the rules; there are 6 ways to enter.

1) Leave a comment on this post – tell me what your favorite cookbook is and why.

2+3) Follow me on Twitter (please tell me in the comments what your twitter name is so I can confirm). For an additional entry, you can also tweet about this giveaway (my twitter name must be included to qualify – that’s @elinacooks fyi)

4) Like Healthy and Sane on Facebook.

5) Add Healthy and Sane to your blogroll.

6) Link to this post on your blog, if you have one. If you don’t, let someone else know about this giveaway and tell me so in the comments section after they’ve entered the giveaway.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry. The giveaway is open to US residents only (sorry) and will end on December 11. I will randomly choose a winner using random.org and announce him/her on Sunday. Good luck! Open-mouthed smile

It’s Ellie (Krieger) week!

September 8th, 2010

Adam told me today that the focus of my blog has become a lot less “healthy” and a lot more “sane,” since so many of my posts cover food/body image issues and the like. Well, I’m showing him up tonight with a post that’s all about healthy foods because hey, I’ve been cooking and I want to tell you all about it!

This week I did something kind of fun. Remember CEiMB Thursday posts? Well obviously I’ve been a big slacker on that front but I still love Ellie and take inspiration from the CEiMB group and other Ellie recipes. This week I challenged myself to an Ellie recipe a day in honor of “my” week on CEiMB. I chose the recipe for the baked falafel sandwiches (here) that hopefully all the group members will be excited about making and will enjoy eating. Let’s start with that one and I’ll show you what I else I made this week. Some good stuff not to be missed here!

I remember seeing this recipe on an episode of Healthy Appetite some time last year. It looked so easy and the idea of baked falafel (instead of fried) really intrigued me. Can it still taste good? How will it compare to the “real thing”? This week it was time to find out!

I followed the recipe for the falafel pretty closely, except of course omitted the onions. They came out flavorful and delicious although admittedly a lot drier than their fried counterparts (I’m assuming oil is usually used a lot more liberally in the “filling” too). The taste of cumin and coriander added decisively Mediterranean flavors. If I ever get a craving for falafel, I won’t hesitate to dig up this recipe again. By the way, Adam loved this

You may also notice that this is not exactly a “sandwich.” This is where I decided to add a little twist to the recipe. We had some fresh pizza dough in the freezer so I decided to make falafel flatbreads instead. I rolled out the dough and grilled it. The tahini sauce was transformed into a drizzle by a generous addition of non-fat yogurt and some lemon juice to cut the tartness. Some lightly dressed greens and fresh cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes from the farmer’s market completed the flatbreads. It was one delicious summer meal (don’t remind me that summer is almost over, ok? I’m in denial and I plan on staying there until meals like that can no longer be enjoyed out in the summer heat.)

So that was Monday. We “traveled” to Italy the following day. I actually decided to make a recipe I missed on CEiMB a few weeks ago – shrimp and liquine fra diavolo (recipe here). It got great reviews and this used to be my “go-to” meal at outings to Italian restaurants. I think I had a bad experience once and that kind of ended that trend. But no more, here is what Tuesday’s dinner looked like (what you don’t have a glass of wine mid-week with your dinner? You do? Ok, good! )

I actually put a little twist on this recipe as well. I decided to serve this with zucchini “pasta” instead traditional linguine the recipe calls for. I got this idea from an old post by Sabrina – her pictures make it look like legit pasta, while mine were more like zucchini ribbons (btw, I tried the mandolin method and a vegetable peeler actually worked better – it created thinner strips).

By the time I was done with dinner, it was getting dark so I’m sorry for these blurry photos. I had to fight with lighting. But let me tell you – this was AMAZING. I can’t stop thinking about it. I used diced tomatoes with chiles, which added additional heat and the zucchini ribbons soaked up all the saucy goodness. They do NOT taste like pasta. I don’t even want to call them that. They are thin strips of zucchini, working in perfect balance with the spicy tomatoes, shrimp and garlic. I was lucky enough to score the leftovers and could not wait for lunch today. SO good.

Lastly, on this rainy Wednesday night, it was all about comfort food – lasagna. Well, technically – portobello lasagna rollups (recipe here).

This was a bit more involved than I meant it to be for a weeknight meal but it was VERY much worth it at the end. We somehow ran out of spinach so I dug into my freezer and found some frozen asparagus. That was quickly “steamed” in the microwave and jumped into the rollups. I also bought baby bellas because they are cheaper than portobellos and had to be chopped anyway. Lastly, I used TJ’s organic tomato sauce instead of making my own. It’s my favorite sauce – it’s healthy, organic, delicious, costs next to nothing and takes no effort. Shortcuts are sometimes good. Really good.

Can someone say no to this?

I think not (ok, maybe if you’re vegan. lol)

This one is going straight to our favorite recipes list (PS. I’m going to organize it one day!). Adam was in heaven. I think his dad may drool a little onto the screen. Am I right, Jim? (lasagna love runs in the family).

How is your week going so far? Does any of the above tempt you?