Make Healthy Meals

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar
1 clove crushed garlic
1/2 tsp oregano
1 teaspoon honey Dijon mustard
1 pinch salt
ground black pepper to taste

Combine olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, garlic, oregano, and mustard powder in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Editor’s Note

If you love garlic, add more! If it’s too tangy, add honey.

2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 pound fresh asparagus spears, trimmed
dash lemon juice

Place olive oil, salt, lemon pepper, asparagus spears and lemon juice in frying pan. Cook over medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes. Vary the cooking time by personal preference and thickness of asparagus stalks. Add garlic about 2-3 minutes before the asparagus is finished cooking.

Editor’s Note:

Nuts go well  in this. Slivered almonds or chopped cashews are personal favorites. Parmesan cheese also works well. You can also chop the asparagus into bite size pieces rather than stalks to make it easier to eat.

Don’t overcook the asparagus. This habit is why a lot of people think they don’t like asparagus. It should still be green and a little bit crispy, not soggy, when you’re done cooking.

Technorati Tags: asparagus recipes

It’s a few weeks into the school year for me, my first year of needing to pack a lunch. But I’m learning a lot about how to do well at it.

The most challenging part is making sure it’s a healthy lunch. My daughter’s school has a rule against candy in the lunches, but I like to treat that as obvious.

I’ve found that my daughter is not the sandwich sort. She just doesn’t eat them, as a rule. It’s kind of funny since she loves bread, but that’s how she is.

On the other hand, she loves bringing Sand and Shells for lunch. Very healthy, so I don’t mind that it looks like I’ll be storing batches of that in the fridge for her. It’s the one thing she has requested for lunch, and just now she thinks she could have it every day. I think she’d get tired of that, but I’m certainly willing to let that be a regular component of her school lunch.

Beyond that, I generally give her a stick of string cheese, some vegetables and some fruit. It’s a nicely balanced meal that way, and it goes well in a lunchbox with compartments, such as the Laptop Lunches box available from ReusableBags.com.

Another option I use is to pack leftovers from the night before, if it will taste good cold. This is where ice packs come in handy, since you really do have to be careful with a lot of foods for how long they sit out.

One thing I haven’t picked up yet is a Thermos. This will come in very handy in a few months, of course, when winter kicks in and she needs a warm lunch. You can get them at sites such as ReusableBags.com, Amazon or, of course, at stores in your area. They’re great for packing soups and other foods you want to keep warm until lunch time.

I do allow juice, but not soda. Water is a good choice too. If you choose juice too, just make sure it’s a good quality juice, not something that is more added sugar than juice, or even partially added sugar. I’m much a fan of 100% juice. We use a reusable bottle rather than always spending money on juice bags. In addition, depending on how early your child eats, freezing the bottle mens you have an instant ice pack which should melt sufficiently by lunchtime to provide a drink.

One of the keys to successfully getting your child to enjoy his or her school lunch is to find favorites, and vary them. If it takes a dipping sauce to get him or her to eat the vegetables, so be it. Vary the veggies, vary the sauce, vary everything in ways your child will eat it.

Technorati Tags: healthy school lunch, eating at school, school lunches, kids, parenting, children, school

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup rolled oats or bread crumbs
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 egg, beaten
1/4 tsp ground ginger
ground black pepper and salt to taste
2 tablespoons corn starch
1/2 brown sugar, packed
1 can pineapple chunks
1/3 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 bell pepper, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix ground beef, oats, onion, egg, ginger, black pepper and salt. Roll into meatballs. Bake for 15-20 minutes on a rack, or until meatballs are done.

While meatballs are baking, combine corn starch and brown sugar in saucepan. Add juice from pineapple chunks, reserving the chunks. Add vinegar and soy sauce. Stir frequently over medium heat until thick. Add pineapple and bell pepper.

Editor’s Note:

These are great served over rice or noodles. The taste is fairly sweet. You can water down the sauce if it comes out too thick, but I have rarely found that to be necessary.

Technorati Tags: maui meatballs

1-1/4 cup skim milk, juice or water
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup dry couscous
2 tablespoons chopped dried apricots
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Heat milk, juice or water, and honey in a saucepan until boiling. Add couscous and cinnamon, and remove from heat. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, then add remaining ingredients.

Editor’s Note:

You can add pretty much any dried fruit to this to make it more or less sweet, depending on your tastes. This is not that much like oatmeal, despite how it looks.

Technorati Tags: couscous

Many people complain that eating healthy is really, really difficult. They just don’t know why it has to take so much time to provide healthy meals for themselves and their family.

Truth be told, it’s about as difficult as you make it. And it can be much more affordable than eating out all the time or eating convenience foods.

Your cooking techniques matter, for example. Just about everyone these days knows that frying foods is unhealthy. Yet we eat them all the time at fast food restaurants. After all, it tastes so good!

If you like the taste, it’s far better to stir fry foods at home. You only need a tablespoon or so of oil for most recipes, so you aren’t adding so much fat. Plus you can add fresh vegetables to really make your stir fry delicious. And it’s easy.

A basic stir fry takes some chopped meat, vegetables, a bit of oil and some seasonings. A lot of people use soy sauce in stir fry, and if you’re using a nonstick pan you may be able to get away with using only cooking spray and no oil at all, or even skipping it entirely. Season it up with some herbs, garlic or whatever you like, maybe throw in a handful of cashews or other nuts, and you have a healthy meal that didn’t take too much time to make.

Switching to whole grains helps as well. Stop buying white bread and go for wheat. Switch from white rice to brown. Whole grain pasta. These don’t take any extra time and are much better for you.

If you’re constantly pressed for time, get a crockpot or make extra portions when you cook. The crockpot can be started in the morning, so that when you come home you have a healthy meal waiting for you. Extra portions of many recipes can be frozen so that you have quick dinners or an easy lunch to take to work.

Changing your shopping habits also helps. If you keep chips, soda, ice cream and so forth out of the house, it’s much harder to snack on them. Simple avoidance can work wonders.

You can still eat meat when you want to eat healthy. Just buy the leaner cuts. Most Americans eat more meat than they need to, so consider cooking less of it. This is another area where I’ve found stir frying to be helpful. You feel like you’re getting more meat if it’s cut into small pieces by the time it makes it onto your plate. Mixing it up with a lot of vegetables also gives the illusion that there’s a good amount of meat there.

It takes time to change poor eating habits. It’s a lot of fun eating foods that aren’t so good for you. But you can develop a preference for healthier eating and still not find yourself crunched for time.

Technorati Tags: healthy eating, changing eating habits, good eating habits, healthy food, healthy meals

Some foods make you smile just thinking abut them. Chocolate will do it for a lot of people. But others are just simply good for your smile.

Saying cheese doesn’t just mean smiling nice for the camera. Cheeses are generally good for your teeth. They contain calcium and help with saliva production.

Apples and other crunchy fruits and vegetables are good too. They scrub your teeth just a little. Not a replacement for brushing your teeth, but not a bad start.

On the other hand, sodas and other sugary drinks, including fruit juices, aren’t so good for your teeth. The sugar and acid in them combine to be pretty hard on teeth.