Tomatoes | Healthy and Sane

Healthy and Sane flashback: tomato goat cheese strata

January 12th, 2012

Healthy and Sane flashback is where I share some of my favorite recipes enjoyed in the past – but with better pictures

“Old” tomato goat cheese strata (yikes!). Visually improved tomato goat cheese strata:

Same delicious recipe from Cooking Light. Now hopefully you’d actually want to make it Winking smile

How is your week going so far?? Mine is flying by and I’m not too happy about it. I have things to accomplish!! Winking smile Although now that I think about it, this weekend I’m going to NY to go wedding dress shopping with my sister (and hopefully celebrating my best friend’s 30th birthday… if I can get a hold of her!) so it’s going to be a good one. So I guess it’s ok that it’s coming so soon.

As I mentioned in the my previous post, my sister’s wedding is definitely motivating me to get a little more serious about healthy eating. I’m not going on any crazy diets but I am being a little more mindful about what I’m eating. I put up a big calendar on the fridge reminding me of the “big day” (sort of funny saying that since it’s not my wedding) and a few pictures of myself at a lower weight for motivation. It’s only been 1 day, but I feel like I’m approaching this in the right way and feel good about weight loss results that are sure to follow!

The best part? I have a few old favorites to ensure I’m eating satisfying healthy meals. Like this strata. It comes together quite quickly, uses ingredients I always have on hand (well, I happened to have fresh sage on hand this time, but I’d just use dried if I didn’t) and it’s so warm and comforting. It has (whole wheat) sourdough bread and goat cheese. You can eat it for breakfast or dinner. And one quarter of the pan is a serving. Really, what’s not to love?!

Diets, shmiets. I’ll stick to this! Open-mouthed smile

What are your favorite healthy and satisfying recipes? Please share with me in the comments!

Diet free living: I’m changing

April 12th, 2011

Something is changing in me. I’m almost afraid to ~~say this out loud~~ blog about it in fear of “jinxing” myself but then again I think it’s important to share. I think I’m getting closer to becoming an intuitive eater. Shhh.

I’m noticing very clear differences in the way I’ve been thinking about food in fact. Take this salad for example. It didn’t really start as such.

I was craving hummus and bacon and eggs. I thought a hummus, bacon and egg sandwich sounded fantastic (it was – I had it a few days ago… with some tomatoes and asparagus pesto. Incredible!)… but then I dug a little deeper. Is a sandwich really what I wanted? I wanted those flavors but also something lighter. A salad! That’s what I wanted.

And then the idea of a poached egg over lots of veggies, a big dollop of hummus and one piece of crumbled Applegate Farms bacon was born (side note: I’m obsessed with Applegate Farms stuff!!). I’ve never even made poached eggs but a runny yolk all over my greens, as a dressing, just sounded perfect. And light. Yes, exactly what I wanted.

So I googled how to poach an egg and this was the result:

It was fantastic. And some may say healthier than a sandwich but that’s not why I chose to make that switch. I was craving freshness and this was it.

It’s honestly crazy to realize these little changes about myself. Some days I want pizza and I make it. Sometimes I crave sushi and I buy a roll. And sometimes it’s grilled veggies or a salad. And they are all ok with me.

I am bombarded with advise on what’s “right" and “wrong” to eat but I’m zoning all of it out. I haven’t felt this in-tune with my body and in peace with my food choices (healthy or indulgent) in a long time (maybe ever?). The decision to quit dieting and choose diet free living has never felt more right.

I thought you may want to know that. And also that eggs + hummus (and bacon!) are a match made in heaven Winking smile

Feel free to comment with whatever Smile

The popchips champion-chip finals

April 4th, 2011

Remember my popnachos recipe? Thanks to your votes I was able to move on to the popchips champion-chip finals and this weekend I met up with the popchips team and Kristi (the other finalist) at the gorgeous Roche Bros supermarket in Wellesley to compete for the grand prize (see below).

I had no idea what to expect, how many people we’d be serving, where we’d be cooking, etc. but my eyes were on the prize (I get kind of competitive sometimes, what can I say). I shopped for my ingredients (seriously the store was gigantic and incredibly beautiful – it was kind of hard to focus because I wanted to just get lost browsing through millions of products)… and then it was game-time!

I had a small toaster oven to work with, a tiny space one-cutting board wide (luckily I brought my own knife!) so it was a bit overwhelming at the beginning as I was trying to get into the grove of things.

Kristi’s recipe was a little less involved – she was making chocolate covered popchips that required only 2 ingredients. They were delicious so she had customers voting for her recipe before I even had my first batch made!

Luckily, 20 minutes in, I was on a roll. I was chopping, spreading, getting the crowd to taste and vote (!!!) and I was having a blast!

Everyone really loved my nachos and Kristi’s chocolate covered popchips – many had a hard time picking a favorite since it was essentially dinner and dessert. Not an easy choice for sure!

Working the crowds Winking smile

This kid came back like 4 times… he was clearly a big fan!

After a few hours we closed shop and it was time for the vote counts! I had a good feeling about it because I got really positive feedback on my recipe (and I was honestly happy with it myself and I’m a tough critic). I was still nervous though – I was competing with CHOCOLATE after all.

At the end… I WON! It was a close game – 34/29 but I was the winner of the champion-chip Open-mouthed smile The popchips judges decided that Kristi and I were both winners though so we both received $250. I also get a year’s worth of supply of popchips. Not bad for a day’s worth of work Winking smile [Adam is psyched!]

Have you ever entered (and won?) a recipe competition? I had such a good time, I think I may try my hand at the local smaller scale competitions more often. This was so much fun!

Healthy and Sane flashback: tomato goat cheese strata

Diet free living: I’m changing

The popchips champion-chip finals

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